


Absolves No One

by IsoldeDax



Category: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, BDSM, Baby Michael, Caning, Cunnilingus, Daddy Michael, F/M, Falling In Love, Fingerfucking, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt Michael, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Michael, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Loss of Virginity, Makeup Sex, Misunderstandings, Non-Graphic Violence, Oral Sex, Pining Michael, Power Dynamics, Psychological Torture, Punishment, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Romance, Sadism, Self-Hatred, Shameless Smut, Smut, Spanking, Threats, Top Michael, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-08-29 18:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 70,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16749259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsoldeDax/pseuds/IsoldeDax
Summary: After successfully negating the coven’s plans to murder Michael Langdon, the Reader is tasked with an intimate and dangerous mission.





	1. Chapter 1

This time, if the world ends, it will be your fault.

Mallory says that it was you who changed the plan.

Everyone had agreed but you had to go and hurl your rhetoric at the coven. You had to go and question the moral order of the universe. You had to go and be a buzzkill about killing the antichrist.

According to Mallory, the skeleton of your argument was something like: “If you kill an innocent, then Satan has won.”

You are surprised by this. Who are you, (y/n), to counter the wills of both the once and future Supremes? Can it be possible that, in this forgotten timeline, Cordelia Goode indulged you in a spirited, middle school-esque debate as the planet hovered on the brink of annihilation? You have no recollection of ever going full Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men on anyone, but Mallory, who is, apparently, a Time Lord on top of everything else, says it totally happened.

“You were going to come back here and run this ‘Michael Langdon’ over with a car?” you say after Mallory fills you in on the details. You stare at your sweet mannered friend in disbelief. “Like, as in kill him? But wouldn’t he be, like, a kid?”

Mallory’s thin mouth curls. You feel as though you are looking at her clearly for the first time. She clocks your disapproval, and rolls her eyes because she has seen it all it before. Yes, Mallory replies gently, she was prepared to kill him. And, she adds, Michael Langdon has never been a child in the traditional sense, so you can go ahead and let that go. If he is not stopped, says Mallory, Langdon will rise to such indomitable power that 'ten miracles will not be enough to stop him.' You are too freaked out, in the moment, to ponder this choice of words.

In the weeks to come, your visions appear to confirm Mallory's fears. In your dreams you see a blonde man that you know to be Michael Langdon devour a human heart. Blood runs down his chin like blackberry juice. His eyes turn drunken. His tongue rolls out and laps at the redness like a thing obscene. You wonder if your sisters have had the same premonitions, and if they know that it is you who are to blame.

“Why did you decide to listen to me?” you ask Mallory, after puzzling over it. “If you thought that this one life in exchange for the entire world was a bargain, why take anything I say into account?”

For a moment, something impish lights in Mallory’s eyes. “You convinced me,” she says. “That is all I can tell you, (y/n). Time, and the nature of paradox prevents me from revealing-” It takes effort for her to kill that sentence in its tracks, and this intrigues you. “There must be vagaries, (Y/n),” says Mallory in way that forbids further questioning. “Besides, for all I know, it won’t even work. You might have ended the world already, (y/n), and I might have been stupid enough to let you do it.”

That makes you feel a little ill.

But not as ill as when she tells you what you are going to have to do. You, it seems, and not Cordelia, or Mallory, as you’d previously assumed, will be the one to take Michael under your wing. The ‘why’ of that circumstance beggars your imagination. You know not to ask, because paradoxes.

…

In three days time, Michael’s grandmother, the inaptly named Constance Langdon, throws him out of her house.

When you find him, his life and all the annals of history, are altered forever.

….

Mallory has told you, time and again, that this boy is evil incarnate. She thinks of Michael as less of a human than a virus. She says that he is designed to look this way; that it is no accident that he resembles an angel.

That makes sense to you.

But when you meet him, there is not a particle of your being that does not rail against her words.

It is night and Michael is all alone, crying on a park bench. His shirt, which is the same sunshine and lemon curd colour as his hair, is drenched in the front. You will learn, in the coming weeks, that Michael is a prodigious crier. The frequency of the sight will not inure you to it. Even by the dim light of the lamp posts, the loose curls of his hair shine luxuriantly. He trembles, does the son if Satan, holds himself taut like a bow string. Lean, elegant, cords of muscle strain visibly beneath his clothing.

“Michael Langdon,” you say, softly, so as not to startle him.

He turns his face to you. You ignore the hitching in your chest. He has lovely, slanted eyes that are so pale they appear lit from within. There is a look to them, something utterly lost, yet also otherworldly and penetrating. Your magic coils around you protectively. You have never been more terrified. You have never been more beguiled.

The evil that made him, made him good, you think. He is a formidable antichrist, not because he is able to lead an army, but because he makes you think you might burn just for the chance to care for him, to nourish, to enable. You have been told that that is how he will rise, this thing that hell has belched out, this issue of human and spirit. That is how he will peacock over the ashes of seven billion people, and peck at the few living who remain. You try to think of that, of the apocalypse, as this boy raises his shimmering, tearful eyes to yours.

From the moment he sees you, Michael’s soul leaps up at you like a shackled animal at a beam of sunlight. You try not to take it personally. This beautiful boy appears to wonder at the extraordinary circumstance of anyone having looked at him at all.

“Hello, Michael,” you say with a shaking voice, “My name is (y/n) and I’m here to take you to a special place.” In an instant, his hand, which is warm and sweaty, is clutching yours. It is both a pleasure and a shock. For a moment, you are fook enough to think this will be easier than you thought.

As you walk back to the car waiting to take you both to Robichaux’s, you tell Michael about your school, about Cordelia, about the witches. You tell him that he will be cared for and understood, but that he will have to be good.

Michael is still holding your hand when he stops in his tracks. Understanding flashes in his eyes. “I’ve done bad things,” he confesses, in a tiny, pained voice. The shame on his face makes your breath falter.

Before you can think better of it, your hands are on Michael's shoulders. “Listen to me,” who say emphatically. “You are no more naturally given to evil than I am, Michael Langdon.”

You have just told a lie, you think. You can’t leave it be, so you try to elaborate. “That is to say, I don’t know what I would have done in your position, in your circumstances, in the, um,... environment in which you were raised.”

It is not lost on you the mental gymnastics that you are already engaging in. Michael squeezes your hand, then laces his fingers with yours, as though it were a perfectly natural thing to do.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks. A tear rolls down his cheek.

How little kindness has Michael Langdon received in his brief life that he thinks this is a normal question to ask another human being?

You embrace him, because what else is there to do? Michael holds on longer and tighter than he should. He inhales your scent and sighs alarmingly. You realize that you have already fallen into a human shaped black hole without knowing or thinking understanding. If you are not careful, its gravity will grind your bones with infinite slowness and infinite tenderness.

…..

At Robichaux’s Michael is quickly hailed- poor choice of words there, ‘hailed’- as a prodigy. More than a practitioner of magic, he is an inventor. New spells; new potions; new ways to pick the locks of nature just seem to flow out of him. And, already, you can see his powers veering into darkness. Some would say it is folly to initiate Michael Langdon into the mysteries of witchcraft. But Cordelia and Mallory seem to know instinctively that to deny him this aspect of his being would only lead to greater catastrophe.

Michael is attracted to death. The compulsion to kill birds and rats and, on one occasion, a beloved pet salamander, is as absolute as natural law.

You make excuses for him. You compare him to a game hunter. His 'kills', you point out, are more often presented as trophies to those he loves. "He only ever gives them to you, girl," Queenie deadpans. She has a point.

You chide yourself for not watching him better. In the bowels of your conscience, you find a morsel of sympathy for Michael’s grandmother.

You try harder.

You hug him more.

You let him hold your hand in the company of others, and hug your waist when you are standing up and he is sitting down, even when it makes the other witches uncomfortable.

He follows you everywhere. It is unnerving to be caught in the constant, blazing floodlight of Michael Langdon’s interest. You feel him anatomizing your tick and habits. He hands you things like your hair brush or your phone, before the instant you conceive if looking for them.

Michael does not see the point of being alone.

He begs to sleep in your bed. He claims he has nightmares otherwise.

The reactions from your fellow witches range from fitful jealousy (he does look the way he does, after all), to outright disgust.

Mallory and Cordelia know that it- your friendship, or whatever it is- serves a purpose. They know that it is best for you to keep him close. It is only utility that they care about. You’ve seen ‘The Wrath of Khan’ so you know you should see it that way too, ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one,’ and all that claptrap. But they are not there, in the spell of night, when you lie almost nose to nose with Michael and you tell him stories. The rapture on his face makes you certain that he was never been read to a day in his life.

Cordelia can smell hell stink on him. She can barely stand to be civilized in the boy’s presence. But doesn’t she see how Michael is falling over himself just to catch the eye of the Supreme? A kind word would not kill her, you think. Michael feeds upon feminine approval like a flower feeds upon the energy of the sun.

This should be easier. You thought it would be good for him here, but Michael knows he will never be one of the sisters, and he is growing bitter about it. Soon, it becomes clear that you cannot keep him at Robichaux’s. You are afraid that the animal killing will graduate to witch killing. Witches are a tribal sort. There isn’t much in the way of gray area when it comes to grievously harming one of their own. You wonder, absently, whatever happened to that boy Kyle...

Michael, you dread to realize, is going to need more. When you found him in the park, your head was filled with girlish fantasies. You thought one of the witches might be capable of performing some kind of ‘soul surgery’ on Satan’s son.

Two weeks into his stay at Robichaux’s , they let you have him. Cordelia gives you some of Myrtle’s chunky, modernist jewellery to pawn. You lease an apartment from an old friend of Fiona’s of all people, a small studio that suits Michael because it means you never have to be out of his line of sight.

Michael cleaves to you.

There is no other way of putting it.  
He continues to sleep in the same bed as you. There is no longer any notion of ever denying him that. He is a beautiful pestilence, scraping and scraping and scraping at your boundaries until nothing remains.  
…..  
One evening you are coming out of the bathroom, your wet hair tousled, a towel slung around your neck, and you catch Michael waiting by the door, looking suspiciously as though he might have spent the intervening minutes trying to look at you through the slit between door and frame. In his eyes lingers a wet, melting overabundance of focus. You are half naked now and he does not look away- on the contrary he snatches the opportunity. Michael is wearing only his threadbare plaid boxers. You are relieved he isn’t in his pajamas, the ones with sail boats on them. His eyes follow the line of your body down and up with a mix of curiosity and reverence. He is made to look at you this way, you tell yourself, to fix upon anything or anyone that might be a stepping stone to his survival and ultimate purpose. You should not be so easily ensnared by this obvious honey trap.  
You know what will follow because it has already happened on three occasions following three separate showers. You take in a deep breath of air, close your eyes against the onslaught, and prepare yourself for the courteous asking of permission.

Michael looks at your hands where they are clutching the towel, your modesty, so to speak. “(Y/n),” he asks, polite, but forthright, “may I touch you?” He looks hopeful. As though you might do it this time, as though you might gift him.

There are limits to your composure, you realize, looking at the blue and burgundy tiles that make up the bathroom floor. The apocalypse as spearheaded by one Michael Langdon might not be an inevitability in this time line, but some things are. Michael he is watching your face now. The attention sinks into skull and brain matter. You are nineteen. You are not blind. You are not deaf. You have heard the strangled love sounds he makes when he is in the bathroom. You have noticed pairs of your panties disappearing at an alarming rate, only to find them tucked under his pillow- as if hiding them there were some ingenious stratagem on his part. You are not a ninny and you know what these have been used for. You imagine it and your cunt throbs.

It shouldn’t work this way, you tell yourself. You shouldn’t feel such intense longing for the boy after whom you clean up, whose tears you dry, who you have to help shave so he doesn’t make a bloody mess of his face, who is still figuratively covered in hell’s own amniotic fluid, whose innocent malignance can be felt, at times as keenly as bodily odour.  
But need emanates from Michael in palpable waves, and it is impossible not to respond. The desire to possess is almost overwhelming to him.  
You know that, one day, soon, he will not ask so politely.

Mallory told you that in her timeline Michael Langdon killed you, or rather, he had his robot, Ms. Miriam Meade, do it. You were just one of what was, to him, an anonymous crew of witches upon which Miriam Meade-bot rained a shower of bullets when the pair raided Robichaux’s. You remind yourself, in moments, like this, that Michael is manipulative, that you are just his current favorite toy, the human who attends his needs and whose will he is allowed to dismantle from time to time. In another timeline, things would be different. In another timeline you would be vapor.

Michael’s eyes fall on your hips and his face brightens. He realizes that he did not elaborate enough. This, he thinks, may be what is causing the hesitation and confusion, “Please, (y/n), I want-”  
You squeeze your eyes shut and wince. Raising one of your hands to interrupt Michael, you say, in as gentle a tone as possible, so as not to hurt the feelings of this sensitive boy, “I know, Michael, I know what you want.”

The tension in his chorded muscles lessons somewhat. He looks relieved at your comprehension. Compliance is the logical outcome of comprehension, in his eyes. It is inconceivable to him -inconceivable!- that he might be denied his request a fourth time, especially when he has kept asking so politely and grammatically. What he lacks in awareness of sexual and social mores, Michael more than makes up for in entitlement. You shudder to imagine what this would become if it ran unchecked and undisciplined among card carrying Satanist circles.  
Michael looks adorable, happy, like he is about to be fed something delicious. You strenuously fight the urge to cross the floor and sit on him.  
Taking your silence for approval, Michael stands up and walks toward you. There is a catlike economy of motion to the way he moves which has always and will always appeal to you.

He is so close to you now that his warm breath gusts over face. It smells of spearmint. And he smells of bergamot and cedar and… something hellish and wonderful that you cannot put a name on. One of the ways in which Michael Langdon is different from ordinary humanity, you discover, is that proximity does not to dispel an illusion of but rather sharpens the reality of his physical perfection. With Michael that close, your sense of the exterior world, of this tiny apartment and the sky darkening through the windows, fades to nothing. There is only the scent of him, and the dangerous things that prowl behind the astonishing colour of his eyes.  
You look down and thrill to discover an erection shamelessly protruding from his threadbare boxers. The ribbon of heat in your stomach tightens. Your breath catches in your throat when you look up and find his eyes on yours. You were about to do something -to say something- to stop this, you are sure. There is a niggling thought in your mind that it might be wrong to kiss the antichrist. But that thought dies a swift, permanent death when you hear Michael’s breathing. It is loud and laboured. This boy, you realize, can barely breathe with wanting you. The expression on his face goes beyond lust, into territory that looks very much like physical pain. He looks, and trembles, as though he might die.  
You have no humility, you think, if you deny him this.

The first slide of Michael’s lips against yours feels like drowning. A first, he is shaking and tentative. When he holds your face in his hands, you are not sure if it is to steady himself or you. You feel his muscles coil, then slacken with relief. A sound escapes him, a low moan, then another. It is obscene, the son of Satan is mewling gratefully as he presses his body against yours. Between your breasts and his chest there is only terry cloth. For a few moments, it is as though you and Michael share a single, oversized heartbeat. When you break the kiss for air, Michael’s face flexes in displeasure. You cannot help but giggle, then startle slightly as you feel the pads of his fingers, and the barest hint of nail, slide up your scalp and deliver your face to his demanding mouth. Michael is infinitely surer now. He bites your bottom lip, hungry and petulant until you allow his tongue entrance. Another rumbling moan. Then his lips find your neck. Michael kisses and licks at all the delicate places, driving you deeper into oblivion.  
The eagerness knocks you back. You did not realize, before, just how much self control he has been exercising this entire time.  
Michael sucks and drags his tongue against your tender flesh. He is, one moment, a frenzied animal, the next, achingly measured and deliberate. You feel him smile against your throat, then teeth. Somewhere in the depleted mists of your cognition, you recognize that he will want this for as long as he is not denied it, and maybe there will come a time when even that does not stop him. Michael Langdon intends to learn you. He will play your body’s supplicating vassal so beautifully that one day you will turn around and he will simply have become its ruler.

Michael’s hands mold over your hips. His mouth trails purposefully down. The towel is ripped violently away, and he stares, spellbound.  
“(Y/N),” his voice is thick with besotted wonder, “You are so beautiful. May I put my hands here?”  
You nod.  
The whole universe shrinks to the feeling of Michael’s hands on your breasts, and his lips on her belly. You realize, with slow burning mortification, that your pussy is wet beyond all semblance of reason, and that Michael knows it.  
He stops his ministrations and, for a moment, you almost panic. Then you feel yourself being lifted. Michael bridal carries you to the bed you already share, the bed where you have spent the past four nights pretending Michael’s lips aren’t plastered to the curve of your ear, that he isn’t furiously rocking his groin into your ass in his sleep.

Michael is wide awake now, and above you. His beautiful face is somewhat terrifying. He is torn, you can tell because he wants- no, needs- to be your slave, but he wants to ravage you too. He wants you to know a fraction of the desperation that he has felt. He wishes he could peel apart and devour you, and punish you for making him want the things that a monster like him should never have. His grip on your waist is near bruising. “It is all right, Michael,” you say, in an effort to soothe. There will be time enough for everything.  
His face softens. He is your Michael again. He gasps for air, and in the next moment, he is kissing his way down. It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to guess where this is heading.  
"W-what are you doing?" you ask softly, stunned to find your faculties of speech in tact when you feel the tip of his nose nudge the short, neat thatch of hair at the apex of your pubic mound. Michael’s eyes bore into yours, bright and shameless. He flashes you the smuggest smile you have seen him wear yet.  
It has not escaped your notice that he has been captivated by the triangle between your legs ever since that towel was summarily dismissed. It has not escape your notice that he has been angling himself, keening. With every passing second, desire is stretching and breaking his patience. Michael wants so badly to be good, but he can’t take it. He wants what he wants and it is a blight against the natural to deny himself.  
Michael is staring at your pussy like a man hypnotized. Your eyes follow the line of his throat as he swallows. His mouth is literally watering for that, you realize. He looks up at you again and swallows again before asking “May-“ You cover his mouth with yours. Then you press the gentlest of kisses on his temple, where the golden curls stick to sweat.  
“Yes, Michael,” you say, “you may.”

The first touch is feather light.  
Something in you that has been dammed breaks and floods and you push your hips toward him. Michael cups your cunt possessively with one palm. His eyes shutter and he sighs- just from touching it he sighs, ecstatic. Then he pushes a digit in and gasps. It sounds like surprise, but what about this would he have to find surprising? He pushes deeper in, amazed at the wet welcome.  
You make a strangled sound and this does something to Michael. You don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone look more drunkenly, deliriously excited about anything in your life. Michael’s places his hands on your thighs and purposefully nudges them apart, opens you up like you’re his present.  
Michael's mouth latches onto your pussy and he groans on contact. His entire body shudders in appreciation and maybe you would be alarmed if you weren’t too consumed by how good it feels. He has the gall to look up at you as he spreads your pussy lips apart with his fingers and swirls his tongue against the wet folds. You mutter your barely coherent approval, because you know it is important to him. Your encouragement is met with more lapping and stunning, single minded greed. You are exploding. You have touched yourself many times. But this- this- you feel as though your cunt is being given to you for the first time.  
Michael Langdon eats pussy like a starving, shipwrecked man at a buffet. He eats with hard, undignified abandon, like he can’t believe that you are allowing him to do this, like you might change your mind at any moment so he’d better eat while he can. His eyes are closed and his tongue is moving, his mouth opening and closing against your flesh. He rolls his thumbs in clever circles. He must be gifted with the Devil’s insight, you think, to know exactly what you need before you know to want it yourself. You see stars as Michael dips his tongue in and out of your hole. He presses his whole face in, nose, lips, chin, rubbing, filling, licking. He sucks until his name is a litany on your lips. By the time he slides two fingers into your depths, you know your unraveling is imminent. And Michael seems to know it as well, because he is chasing something he has never had, tongue flattening around your clit, humming with the joy of a man who has just unlocked nature’s deepest secret. You are certain the that neighbors can hear it and aren't going to be happy for him. Animak sounds are being ripped from you as he plunges deeper, as those clever fingers curl inside you.  
When you cum, your senses short circuit. Reality blows out of existence. You are high, on another plane, alive and dead at the same time. Your pleasure crashes and rolls on and on and on like nothing else before it. You shudder and twitch in the aftermath. He wants to keep doing it, you realize. Michael's blonde head is still down there, his mouth still sealed over you, drinking in desperation. You have to twist your pelvis away from him.  
He looks so disappointed. ”Did I do a bad job, (y/n)?”  
You feel an urgent need to disabuse Michael of this notion, so you capture his face with your hands. “No, Michael, that was wonderful. You made me feel so good it was almost unbearable.”

It is everything that he wants to hear. It should make you laugh how sweetly predictable he is. But you don't laugh. The way his bee stung (from going down on you) lips curl robs you of air, makes your heart constrict painfully, makes you more determined than ever.

If you keep allowing Michael Langdon to do this, you think, there will be no sitting in pentagrams in the middle of the forest. There will be no black masses and no simpering old women. If you keep allowing Michael to have this, you think naively, his evil impulses may become as fleeting and harmless as cloudbursts. Armageddon will not become the great preoccupation of his life, if another, greater preoccupation (your pussy) is allowed to supplant it...  
Michael groans when you touch him. His dick is both the hardest and the silkiest thing you have ever felt. You wonder if every dick feels like that. Michael is still ravenous, still keening. The line between his eyebrows deepens. You can feel his pride working. He is desperate to reign himself in. He does not want to be a disappointment. He does not want to make a mess all over your hand. He does not want to spill outside of you. But then, he doesn’t know if you are even going to let him put this thing where he knows he needs to put it. You smile at his frustration and wonder if there might be a little of the devil in you to keep a boy in such agony. Michael gasps as you cup his balls. You move your hand gently up his shaft and the sound he makes is plaintive, whining. He doesn’t have to say the words for you to know what begging is.  
You close your eyes and commit this to memory.

You will have to remember this moment, you think, if Michael Langdon ever grows too big for his britches. If he ever has ideations about dropping nuclear bombs or presiding over human sacrifices, you’ll have to recall the hot, powerful feeling of holding the antichrist by the balls and biting the side of his neck, as he grinds his hips up and down like a thoughtless rutting teenager- which is what he is, apart from everything else.

“P-please (y/n),” he breathes.  
“It’ll be my first time,” you say, matter of factly. You hope that doesn’t scare him. Upon hearing this news, Michael takes momentary hold of his wits and smiles like a conqueror. “Shut up,” you tell him. You tighten your grip on him and he hisses, looking penitent, pleasured, admonished.  
“It’ll be mine too,” he whispers. As if you needed to be told that.

You allow him to lay you on your back. He does it with all the care and gentleness he can muster. When he finally positions himself over you, Michael kisses your mouth deeply. “Are you sure?” he whispers, as his fingers find your cunt once more. You nod. He makes a grateful noise and splays you open. His cock slides in slowly. Michael’s eyes shutter and, even before he is fully in, he looks like he is dying. It is a shocking feeling. You breathe through the momentary bridge between pain and pleasure. When the latter overtakes you, Michael begins to move. He is moving his hips in what you know are meant to be studied, languid thrusts, but which, in reality, are desperate and frenzied. Still, you can hardly believe that he already knows how to make this feel this good. He starts to play with your clit, the clever devil. He barely seems aware of it, with his head thrown back, and his gorgeous, pale, sinuous neck exposed for you to kiss. Micheal’s control is egg shell thin, you know. When you squeeze your cunt muscles experimentally, he gasps. He is such a beautiful mess right now, with his golden hair falling sweatily over his face, and his jaw slackened. Michael looks at your face reverently, and you know that he is trying to comprehend how he will ever live a second of his life in any other state but this. You scream into his shoulder as he ploughs harder. His fingers move furiously. Your second climax is torrential as all hell and you rake your nails mindlessly over his back. This sparks something in Michael, sending him over the edge at the precise moment the spasms in your cunt are milking him. 

You have to stop Michael’s mumbled apologies when they come. It doesn’t matter if he finished quickly, you say. He looks unconvinced and begs to be allowed to eat your cunt again.

In the night it begins to rain. Michael’s warm body twines about yours like an errant sprig of ivy. Noiseless tears roll down your cheek. If you lose this, you think, it will be hell made portable.


	2. Chapter 2

On the thirty fifth day of your road trip, Michael confesses to you that he has never in his life felt this happy. 

The two of you lie on the hood of your hastily rented car, holding one another. Far away, in the dark folds of the valley, Los Angeles stretches like a shimmering cobweb.  
You tell Michael that you feel the same way, and hope he feels the truth of the words. He clings to you, in that heart rending way he clings, as though afraid that you might bolt like a spooked cuttlefish and leave him bereft. 

Nearby, an owl sits watchfully upon the limb of an ash tree. A dead mouse dangles from its bloodied talon, the casualty of exellent eyes. It makes you think of Michael and his little ‘presents’. You smile. You are a besotted lunatic. Perhaps this is why he loves you, because you adore the diabolical in him as well as the sweet.  
Michael knows that you two are running from something, but he doesn’t seem to mind. To be alone with you, day after day, night after night is a bliss not to be examined or questioned.

You do not regret ‘running away’ with Michael. You loved your life at Robichaux’s. You found safety and comfort within its white walls and in the way that all the breathless excitements of magic were tempered by the interminable pattern of classes, gossip and daily routine. You never thought you would be on the run from enemies that you had never seen and could hardly fathom, but then, you never imagined you’d be in love with Satan’s son.

You lean and kiss Michael. There is no getting used to it, how perfect it feels to touch him, how warm and secret and stolen. It makes you imagine what a normal life with him would be like, one where you could stay in one place for longer than a night, and not worry about packs of Satanists stealing your lover.  
In the moonlight, Michael’s eyes are a mercurial silver. He seems to grow more beautiful by the day, you think, becoming more what he is destined to be: a man into whose mouth the lusting world might drop as willingly as a grape. 

“I’m sorry I got us thrown out of the Applebee's, (y/n),” Michael says softly. 

It takes you a moment to remember what he is talking about. You squeeze his hand. “Don’t be sorry, Michael. It was my fault too. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into it.”  
Michael has yet to learn that not every time, and not every place is an appropriate one to ask to eat you out.  
Most of the time, he proceeds to do so with utmost politeness (Michael’s no angel, he knows this is more likely to garner him the results he wants). The hope- no, expectation- in his voice does not diminish over time. You would love to be the possessor of that kind of optimism, you think.

Of course, he will never learn decorum if you keep indulging him. For every twelve rebuffals, you have a moment of weakness. You know that it was wrong to relent that time he made you leave the queue for the roller coaster ride at that fair in New Jersey. You should not have popped into the bathroom of the ice cream parlour, and gripped his shoulders as he ate and ate. 

You know you should not have yielded so easily when you were waiting to rent the car for your trip. But Michael nibbled at your clavicle in front of everybody, then pouted so alluringly that you let him lead you into a utility closet.

Nor was the line up for the check out counter at the supermarket an opportune place to beg, BEG, to ‘please let me lick it (y/n)’ within earshot of at least a half a dozen soccer moms. This was not behaviour to be rewarded. And yet where were you not five minutes later? In the backseat of the car, in the parking lot with your cunt planted on Michael’s face, exploding over his fevered ministrations, that’s where. 

The Applebee’s was your fault too. You suppose you were lucky the manager did not call the police. 

You struggle with your desire to overindulge Michael. You struggle with the glorious feeling that comes with satiating him- not that he ever appears to be satiated.  
The first time you go down on him- something that never occurs to him as a possibility until you push him onto a chaise longue somewhere in Louisianna- there is a power grid outtage three miles wide. You have never seen a person looking so utterly undone as Michael Langdon does then. Golden strands of hair plaster to the wet sheen on his forehead, and those clear, tilted eyes widen in disbeleiving rapture. You can hardly believe, yourself, how good it feels to have his dick surge in your mouth. You understand now, why Michael sucks at your own juices as though they are the sweet nutrient of his existence. 

But there is a war in him. You would be an idiot not know that. 

You can see it in Michael’s gaze at times, the shattering spiritual shock of it, the confusion (or is it the sense of wrongness?) that he, who was born to blanket the earth in death should find himself in love with a fragile, organic thing like you. 

You tell yourself that the evil attached to Michael’s soul is an affliction to be overcome, a tumor to be removed. You understand that it is not the totality of him. And you refuse to be yet another coward who gives up. 

But you worry.

You worry that nothing you are, nothing you do, nothing you give, nothing you feel for Michael will be enough to turn him from his path.  
How can the love of one imperfect human being make up for what has been an injustice of cosmic proportion?

How long will drowning himself in your cunt distract him? How long can you keep driving aimlessly across city, swampland and prairie, visiting museums, attending matinees in derelict cinemas, and discussing theories of sorcery over diner food? 

One afternoon, you find yourself needing to use the restroom at a Truckstop. You ask Michael if he is ok sitting on the bench alone for a moment, eating the hostess brownie you got for him. He nods and smiles sweetly.

When you come back, Michael has a large, pony tailed man in a telekinetic chokehold. The man is gasping and has begun to bleed out of his eyes. Michael looks transported, and utterly delighted, as though he has discovered a juicy insect he particularly looks forward to crushing. You scream. But Michael allows the seconds to drag, relishing the man’s struggle.

“Michael, stop this at once!” you shout. The words seem barely to register. Michael does not even look at you when he says, as if by way of explanation, “He was looking at you, (y/n). I saw into his mind. His thoughts were rude.” Michael is fairly shaking with rage. All you can think to do is hurl yourself at him. It is enough to make him break the spell. This time.  
Later, at the motel, Michael still can’t seem to comprehend why you stopped him from crushing the man’s windpipe. 

You tell him that that man has a life and feelings just as Michael does, that nothing he’d done, or said, or thought warranted getting murdered. 

Michael blinks, and cocks his beautiful head to one side, as is his wont when grappling with what he considers to be ethical vagaries. “But he was thinking about you,” Michael repeats in a small voice. He is so desperate for understanding that it breaks your heart.

“But you cannot do things like that, Michael,” you say gently. “That is not how the world works. One cannot instigate a bloodbath over every perceived rudeness. It simply isn’t right.” 

Sometimes you fear that you are crediting Michael Langdon with empathic functions that he simply does not possess. The thing that ought to frighten you, you suppose, is how little anything like that could alter your feelings for him. 

You pull him into your arms at the first threat of tears. The tight furnace of his body collapses on you. Michael cries for a bit, then seems to inhale you, presses himself up closer, burying his tearful face in the crook of your neck. The words, when they come, are strangled, “I am sorry, Y/n,” he says. “I don’t know why I do it. It feels bigger than me sometimes.” Your hand finds the top of his head and strokes the confounding softness of his curls. Michael sighs at the touch, but he is still tense, you can feel it. With what you sense is nothing short of a herculean effort, Michael disengages from your embrace. When he looks at you, a universe of fear is swimming in his lagoon pale eyes. His bottom lip is plump and red from where he has been worrying it. “M-my grandma, she- When I killed those people she-”

You kiss Michael firmly to silence him. This, you have found over the weeks, is never a bad move. Michael responds to kissing always with earnest, supplicating joy, no matter the circumstance. Predictably, his lips demand more. Predictably, you respond with acquiescence. 

“Michael,” you tell him, after several moments, “you must believe that I would never- could never- leave you, or throw you out.” You brush his cheeks with your lips, then look at him with utmost solemnity. “I am different from Constance,” you say. “You and I are different. Everything is different. You never, ever have to worry about that. There will never be a time when I do not love you.”

Michael is helpless to hold back tears now. You wish he wouldn’t look so damned happy. He holds your heart in his hands and it is fact- not anything to be grateful over.  
“I love you too, (y/n),” he whispers. 

That evening, you prepare Michael a bubble bath, to help him relax. 

You are alone in the bedroom, in the midst of stripping off your own clothing so you can join him, when something crashes into the grime covered window of your motel room. When you inspect the glass, you see it has been scratched where a beak has hit it. Beyond the scratch, the sky above your motel has turned crimson, and a murder of crows is flying in dizzying, multitudinous spirals through the air. 

You are about to run to get Michael, to haul ass out of there, when something heavy and dagger sharp collides with your skull. 

You gaze up at the water stained ceiling as hot blood pools all around you. The pain is white and blinding. 

Michael’s bath is still filling loudly. The door is closed. You hope that he does not have to come out here, to find you, to witness this.

Then, you hear voices.

The face of an austere, middle aged woman with cropped black hair and matching lipstick looms over yours. It is soon joined by that of a younger woman and a Man with a Van Dyke beard and a hood.  
“We haven’t got much time, Anton,” says the black lipstick woman. “We should dispose of this one before we introduce ourselves.”

“Do we dare hide her from our Lord? Won’t he be angry?” the younger woman asks, scandalized.

Black lipstick lets out an exasperated sigh. 

The man named Anton intervenes diplomatically, “When our Lord claims his throne and brings the whole world to heel, he can fill his harem with the choicest of choices.” He gestures down at your bleeding body, “I hardly think that he’ll miss this little scrap of strange, do you?” 

You want to scream, but your throat appears to be missing. Your mind is beginning to drift away from you. You are connected to the world only by the frailest tether of pain. 

Seconds later, everything turns black. 

It takes days for your sisters to find you. By that time, Michael is far away. 

In the safe cloister of your coven, Cordelia Goode to performs the Vitalum Vitalis on your mangled, gray ruin of a body. 

You search for Michael. They say it is too late, that you’ll never find him. He is with his people now, they tell you. His evil will be allowed to come to full flower, and the world is fucked.

You keep searching. 

Four years pass before you see Michael Langdon again. 

By that time, a lot has changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so grateful to anyone who has spared a glance at this story. Thank you for the encouragement!
> 
> The next chapter will be DADDY TIME.


	3. Chapter 3

There is plenty of time for ruminating at the end of the world.  
You think about all that could have been handled differently.  
You wonder about the things that Mallory and Cordelia know, that they never told you. For years, you thought that they, clever foxes, kept you in the dark because you could not be trusted to do anything right after the Michael disaster. But now you know that it was all a part of some greater, mysterious design.  
You replay your last days and hours with Michael until they are a strange loop. You cling to patchwork images of him in your mind. You close your eyes and imagine his voice. You remember his bright, pulsing curiosity. That’s the part that will always confound you: who have you ever known that is as life loving as Michael Langdon? Who is more blissfully, unrepentantly sensuous than Michael? Michael, who had to sample every flavour at that fudge shop in Rhode Island; Michael who hunted your kisses with setter like eagerness and never let you sleep without touching him.  
You used to take Michael to art museums, even the ones that you knew might contain religious iconography. Your sisters thought you were tempting fate, giving him messianic ideas. But Michael was, among all other things, a budding aesthete pulled irresistibly toward beauty, flamboyance and drama. He totally would have discovered this shit on his own eventually, so why deny him? Perhaps, you reasoned, if he came to understand his place within the Judaeo-Christian, western cultural canon, he might regard his satanic destiny not as duty, but as a kind of folkloric costume to be shrugged off at will.  
One memory, in particular, sticks out in your mind, from that late afternoon you spent in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. You suppose that you should not have been shocked to witness Michael lulled into stupefaction by the delicate, glowing figures in Rembrandt’s ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’. In the picture, a father welcomes back his ruined, wastrel of a son, the sinner who has pilfered away all of his money on vices and harlots. The prodigal son is kneeling before the father, and the father enfolds him in the tenderest of forgiveness.  
Compelled by Michael’s obvious fascination, you sidled up to him and whispered, “Notice, Michael, the father’s hands…”  
“I noticed,” said Michael. And there was more- in fact, there was EVERYTHING, beneath his words.  
Because amid the ochre, scarlet and olive green hum and thrum of paint, the father’s left hand appears distinctly more weighty and masculine, while the right is more soft and feminine, like that of a mother.  
“Isn’t it beautiful?” you asked Michael.  
But Michael looked agitated. “I don’t understand,” he said with a petulance that threatened to turn the canvas to dust. “Why is the father letting the son back into his fold? Why is he showering him with compassion when all he has done is FAIL? Everything that he was born for has been squandered, he has lived a lifestyle unbecoming of him.”  
Was it about himself or the painting that Michael spoke of that day? Did he think of you as one of the harlots into which he, Satan’s prodigal son had squandered all the promise of his destiny? Did he hate you then? Does he hate you now?  
“Does that disturb you, Michael?” you asked him, “that a person might be lost and then found again? That they might be forgiven by those that truly love them?”  
Michael looked as though he wanted nothing more than to crawl out of his own flesh.  
You should have seen the writing on the wall, then. You should have known that the enterprise of loving Michael out of his fate was doomed to fail, roving pack of Satanists or no roving pack of Satanists.  
Instead of using your damn brain, you had taken Michael’s hand into your own and kissed his knuckles. “Well, it is one of my very favorites,” you'd said.  
Sometimes you really disgust yourself, y/n. Like in moments like this, when you think about Michael and his reactions to art, then suddenly remember that he has killed seven billion people.  
You don’t know how Michael brought on any of it about. Mallory once said that there were many possibilities, different pathways he could have take toward the same goal. She refused to elaborate, as usual. All you know is that, through some configuration of magic, organized satanism, the industrial capitalist complex, geo-political shadow play, and- you suspect, charisma- Michael has done what he was born to do.  
The world has ended, yet you are alive, uncanny, that. But Mallory promised that if you keep yourself alive for long enough, he will materialize.  
So you wait and wait and wait in a hole in the ground known as ‘Outpost 3’.  
The earth is honeycombed with lairs for the wealthy and complicit. Those who live in them are mostly, but not all, satanic co-conspirators of one stripe or another. There are the billionaires who have come to regret ever browsing in the Faustian bargain bin. There are the world leaders who find themselves unceremoniously lacking in any world to lead. There are the scientists, engineers and roboticists who have been squirrelled away in tiny, underground Olympic villages of the mind. There are those who see birth in the ashes, and those who think they’ll be VIPs in hell.  
And, though you don’t know anything about what is going on in the other bunkers, you can’t imagine that it can be any stranger than what is unfolding here.  
For the past 18 months, this particular fiefdom has been ruled by one Ms. Venable, an elegant sadist who has taken the opportunity of the apocalypse to enact her own pseudo Victorian snuff fantasy.  
In lieu of daylight, there are braziers and masses of fat dripping candles.  
The very air here crackles with boredom and repressed desires. Sex, which might have been a much needed consolation for some these people, is strictly forbidden.  
Punishments are doled out on the regular.  
Day one, you were dubbed a ‘gray’. Most of your time is spent emptying bed pans, scrubbing floors and polishing silverware.  
You pass every hour in this glowing, hierarchized realm, a ghost.  
You wouldn’t be here at all if Mallory and Cordelia had not pulled you aside at the beginning of the cataclysm, stuffed that golden ticket into your bag, and rushed you to an airport.  
It turns out that, while you have been roaming the country in a futile effort to find Michael, they have been looking at the bigger picture.  
You begged Mallory to explain, but she promised only that you have a purpose in all of this. If you live, you will see Michael Langdon again.  
So you live.  
Then, one night, the alarm sounds.  
Outpost 3 has been breeched from the surface, and it is not the usual sort of cannibal that has done it.  
Within the hour, all of the occupants of outpost are summoned to gather before a blazing hearth in what Ms. Venable long ago dubbed ‘the receiving room’. When you arrive, everyone is a chatter about the auspicious visitor from the mysterious ‘Cooperative’. You hear the name, ‘Langdon’. It is a hatchet to your heart.  
“Apparently, we’re finally going to getting some answers about what is going to happen to us,” whispers Sonija Belmont, the pretty, blonde widow of a textile heir whose wispy negligees you wash with gardenia scented hand soap.  
“As long as it means we’ll be getting away from that crazy, cane wielding school marm,” says her friend, Leland Linden. The two giggle conspiratorially and glance at Ms. Venable, who is standing at the head of the room and looking, for the first time since you have known her, not in total command of herself.  
Footsteps echo in the connecting hallway. A hush descends.  
Your body threatens to abandon verticality when ‘Mr. Langdon’ enters. But you are ‘gray’, and grays aren’t supposed to swoon.  
Michael floats in on a cloud of drama and… is that cologne?  
He is everything that you remember, and nothing like it at all.  
This new Michael, this older, colder, leaner Michael, makes a pointed show of scanning the room, appraising his vassals. The candlelight turns his head into a flowing reservoir of gold. Gone is the unruly cap of curls that you loved, replaced by hair that is long and preternaturally smooth, which you could also learn to love. What is immediately apparent, is that Michael moves, now, with full awareness of the effect his beauty has on others, like a great courtesan. He is dressed in, of all things, a black cape with scarlet lining and medusa clasps at the shoulders, leather pants and pointed black boots with just the hint of fetish to them. He, or someone else, has applied red make up to his inner eyes. You cannot begin to imagine the course of events that led to this cosmetic decision, but you have to admit, the effect is rather striking.  
You hold your breath and wait for those magnificent eyes to find you. It is the moment that you have waited for, and feared. But when they do, Michael rakes you with the same aloof, indifferent regard as he does all the others.  
That is it.  
That is all.  
Nothing more.  
You wonder, for a moment, if he even recognizes you. Has he been put under an identity spell? Or could it be that your looks have depreciated into something unrecognizable since he saw you last?  
You wonder how this can be… How everything in Michael can be coifed and calm, while everything in you, is surging with terror and love.  
You resolve, immediately, that no tears and no outrage will spill from you this night. You will say nothing until you have a better sense of the situation you are in.  
If Michael does not appear to recognize you, his stout, black haired companion does. It rankles you to see the woman who killed you appear at Michael’s elbow. She seems a lot shorter now, but you figure that is only because, last time you saw her, you were lying on the floor, bleeding out over some truly appalling shag carpeting. Dying, then coming back to life and living through the apocalypse has clearly done some shit, because when your eyes lock with black lipstick, you stone cold Clint Eastwood that bitch. She returns your squint, then looks up at Michael to gage his reaction. The antichrist doesn’t notice, because he is engaged in his own silent dance of intimidation with Wilhelmina Venable. There is a misbegotten quiver of excitement in the room when the school marm finally loses.  
Michael introduces himself, and ‘Ms. Meade’. He gives a speech. That is to say, his lips are moving, you barely register the words. He is saying some things about the other outposts, that they have been ransacked by cannibals, etcetera, etcetera. He says that interviews will be held, during which he will decide who is worthy to move on to the last citadel of civilization: the so called ‘Sanctuary’. For all you know, every word out of his generously proportioned mouth could be a fabrication.  
And then, just as swiftly as he arrived, Michael sweeps out of the room, cape billowing behind him, Ms. Meade trailing after. They must have practiced this, you think, because she knows to leave several steps of room for that cape to work its sartorial magic.  
You do not see Michael again for three days.  
Even though you occupy the same claustrophobic bunker.  
Even though you breathe the same air.  
You look for him, you duck out of your work- your sizable to-do list of menial labor- in an attempt to stalk, stake out, confront.  
While loitering in the area outside of what you guess might be Michael’s quarters, you are discovered by one of Venable’s minions and dragged into questioning.  
Ms. Venable decides that your punishment will be a relatively light one: you will be can five times on the backside.  
You handle it stoically, which, you know, makes it considerably less satisfying for her. When all is finished, Venable slaps your face and has you locked in your room without food for a day. Mere cane wielding mortals, Ms. Venable and her enforcers may be, but you decide that it is safer to avoid courting their rancor from now on. Michael is so painfully close. You have never had a more obvious reason to stay alive, and stay out of trouble.  
Besides, you think, Michael will probably come to you, when he is ready. Right?  
It happens on the night of your appointment to shine Ms. Sonjia Belmont’s sizable collection of hessian boots. You sit with her in the tomb like warmth of her quarters. She is talking at you about, no surprise, how hot Michael Langdon is.  
“He seems like the kind of guy who might have one of those red rooms at his house, you know?” Sonjia says, as she dabs a finger of perfume on behind her ear.  
“What makes you say that, Ms. Belmont?”  
“Call it a hunch,” she replies, and drapes second layer of diamonds to her generous expanse of décolletage. The stones fire tiny rainbows across her pale, delicately lined throat. “What do you think of this necklace for my interview?” she asks you, turning from her vanity.  
“It really compliments your hair,” you tell her. You can’t imagine how she handles the weight of that powdered, perfumed mass that sits atop her head, but you have to give her points for commitment to glamour.  
“You’re a doll, y/n,” she says sweetly, then examines herself in the vanity. “I’ve had some spooky dick in my day, y/n,” she says and a hint of the brassy Long Island accent she fought so many years to kill slips out. “So I know it when I smell it. I imagine I’ll have a lot to report back after my interview…”  
You don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but you are saved from having to make the decision by the entrance of Derek the gray, who is just a servant like you, and not a wizard as his moniker suggests.  
“Your presence is requested in Mr. Langdon’s private quarters, Miss,” he tells you.  
Ms. Belmont looks as though she might shit a tortoise.  
Your heart trembles in your throat as you are led down what seems like world’s longest corridor to Michael’s quarters.  
You turn the door handle and let yourself in.  
“Hello, Michael,” you say awkwardly, as you enter his room.  
You are surprised to find it as starkly appointed as all of the rest. There is a pristinely made bed, a desk, and scores of burning candles. A closed laptop and a black cape trimmed with silver ermine that has been carelessly draped over the back of a chair are the only features that distinguish this room as Michael’s.  
Michael is sitting at his desk. He is wearing a crisply form fitting black shirt with a high collar and blood red neck tie. He makes a languid show of examining the paperwork before him, ignoring you for many, moments before asking you what you want.  
“You wanted to see me,” you tell him, steeling yourself for whatever might come.  
“Ah, yes,” Michael says, without bothering to look up. “The matter of my personal attendant,”  
You blink. “Personal attendant?”  
“Yes, y/n, what else do you think I could want you for?”  
He looks at you, then, does your Michael Langdon, and those beloved eyes fall upon you in much the same manner they might fall upon a week-old sturgeon carcass someone has dumped on his doorstep.  
“Michael…” the name falls out of your lips as a helpless plea. You are embarrassed by that. You thought you might hold out a little longer. Tears threaten, your own for once, and not his. “Michael we have so much to-”  
Michael raises a beringed hand to silence you. “Mr. Langdon,” he corrects.  
You stare at him, watching for some flicker of the boy he was. You see naught but contempt.  
“Why are you talking like this?”  
Michael lets out a deep, theatrical sigh. “I was afraid we would have to have this conversation,” he says wearily. He rises from his desk and circles it in one fluid motion. He comes round to lean on it, looming above you. “The attentions I paid you all those years ago have clearly led you into the false conviction that your continued existence on this ruined planet is of any consequence to me.” Michael leans in, so close that you can smell his spearmint and bergamot. “Let me be as clear as I know how to be, y/n: it isn’t. Not any more.”  
When that goth woman, Ms. Meade, bashed you skull in in that motel room, it hurt less than this does.  
Michael watches you. His beautiful, horrible lips quirk. “Do you know what I did, just after the bombs fell, y/n?”  
Just the way he asks that makes you not want to know at all…  
“I took a little trip to Louisiana, to that grim little hovel your chicken fried swamp friend called a home.”  
Dear god, you think you know where this is going…  
“You see, y/n,” Michael says, sitting on the edge of the desk and crossing his legs gracefully. “I do my research, now. There is a rare variety of mud there, with unparalleled vital properties. It can preserve a pesky little witch as effectively as brine. And your pathetic friends thought to outsmart me with it, they thought to escape my purge, escape my notice.”  
Your eyes close slowly. “Michael, tell me that you didn’t…”  
“O, I did. I rooted them out like pink, screaming turnips,” he says with bone chilling satisfaction. “I dragged them out into the light and had myself a good old fashioned blood bath.”  
A powerful grief descends upon your body, leaving your mouth dry and your mind empty of language.  
“They say that torture feels like tickling after a while,” Michael says. He is now, unlike before, keenly interested in everything that your face is doing, measuring the wounds as he inflicts them. He leans in and there is naked rapture in his voice as he whispers, “I wish you could have been there to see it, y/n.”  
You should not be surprised by this, you tell yourself. Michael Langdon is the proud executioner of seven billion people. What did you think? That he would balk at anything so inconsiderate as killing YOUR precious friends?  
But, even as you sit there, steeping in loss and powerless rage, you consider the possibility that maybe- just maybe- it might not all be over yet. Perhaps, the antichrist has underestimated Cordelia Goode and her coven. There was something about the sureness in Mallory’s demeanor when she told you to hold fast, to keep going, to keep living. This cannot be the end of her, you think, it cannot.  
“Now then,” says Michael, “returning to the matter at hand: my personal attendant. Congratulations, you got the job.”  
Your head spins. “W-what?”  
“With the bulk of my Ms. Meade’s time about to be spent tending to more pressing matters here, and Madelyn in charge of Outpost 9, I figured you would do well in the role, especially given our history.”  
“Who’s Madelyn?” you surprise yourself by asking.  
The corner of Michael’s mouth curls evilly. “A woman.”  
“I refuse to be party to any of your activities here, Michael.”  
Michael’s molten laughter cascades over you. “Were you under the impression that I am giving you another option?”  
“Michael I-”  
Michael tuts, “Mr. Langdon, if you please.”  
You look at Michael Langdon, at his unfairly beautiful, snarling face and you wonder how many times he chanced to hear the word ‘no’ in the past four years.  
“If you will not cooperate, y/n, then I have no choice but to call off all interviews- for everyone in this outpost. It is a shame. I sensed some promise here, some truly vile souls afoot...”  
“You, bastard.”  
“You are running out of supplies and rations,” says Michael pragmatically. “I know it. You know it. This outpost will be rundown in weeks. I am offering some of you the chance for salvation. How much do you love humanity, y/n? Would you see it obliterated for the sake of your pride?”  
Michael appears to revel in your realizing that you have no choice.  
“What does this ‘job’ entail?” you bite out.  
“Sitting in on all of my interviews, maintaining the cleanliness of my quarters, and,” he adds with a dreadful smile, “anything else I might require.”  
Your stomach twists.  
“I want my office to look sparkling for the first interview,” says Michael, gesturing to a door in the adjoining corridor. “Ms. Meade has installed a bucket and some sponges.”  
“How considerate of her.”  
“She IS considerate.”  
You feel an impassioned tirade bubbling up from inside you, you want to recount exactly how ‘considerate’ Ms. Meade was when she left you dead in the dumpster outside a highway motel. You want to scream at Michael that you are sickened that he consorts with her.  
But Michael stops you short with his next command.  
“Now, take off your clothes and go to the bed.”  
You stare at him. “W-what?”  
“I dislike repeating myself, (Y/n).”  
“Mic- Mr. Langdon, I-”  
“The world is gone my dear,” Michael intones silkily, “and with it, all semblance of moralistic hypocrisy. I can do what I like. I can make you do what I like. There will be no chorus of avenging angels. Now take off your clothes and get on the bed, face down, now.”  
You have never heard Michael Langdon talk in this voice, with an authority that is as absolute as the gravity of a dead star. He is watching you, so intently. Even as your mind rebels, you sense that the matter of your body will bend intoxicatedly to his will, like all matter bends, sooner or later, to the will of his hellish magic.  
You tremble as you remove your shoes and peel off your cotton stockings. The cold air bites your flesh as you shirk the gray column of your itchy, wool dress over your head. You are astounded that you are able to feel this level of acute mortification, even after losing the whole world, and, ostensibly, your coven.  
Your feet carry you to the bed. You lay yourself out in the way Michael has ordered. You wait. You wait like sap waiting patiently to become amber. You shiver in anticipation. You only wish you could harden. You wish you did not have to feel any of it. You wish that you did not both dread and hope for whatever horrible thing is coming. You wish your cunt wasn’t wet for it.  
Michael allows the moments of agony to drag. You nearly jump when you feel his voice in the shell of your ear. “So accommodating,” he breathes, and traces a hot, delicate finger from the base of your ass to the notched curve of your spine. You can feel him reigning something in. “I am your King.”  
If the Michael that you knew had ever said a thing like this, you would have found it adolescent and silly. You might have even laughed in his beautiful, haughty face. But this new Michael is different. He radiates power. It rises off of him like steam and thrills you. It makes you wish that you had been born a demon in the darkest, dankest hell, a daughter of Lilith, that you might protest the chains that humanity and morality has laid upon your soul.  
“You are the King of nothing,” you whisper, and raise your eyes up to look at him.  
“Strong words,” Michael says icily. “Too bad I can smell your arousal from here.”  
Your cheeks burn and you turn your face into the pillow.  
“If that puts a patina of justification on what you are about to do, Mr. Langdon, that is your prerogative, not mine,” you mumble into the down.  
“What am I about to do?” he asks, then presses his magnificent nose against the centre of your back and licks. You gasp.  
You are about to answer, when his hand touches the area on your backside that is still tender from Ms. Venable’s recent caning. You wince.  
When you look at Michael, he is staring, frozen, at the blue and black marks, a souvenir of your little rebellion. “You have been hurt,” he says. You are surprised to realize that it is not an entirely neutral observation.  
“What do you care?” you ask raising your head up.  
“Who has done this?”  
“What difference does it make?” you snap.  
“WHO HAS DONE THIS?” You feel Michael’s dark magic flex itself, an angry storm of power beneath all of that black-clad-blood-red-cravat composure. “TELL ME!”  
You suspect that, not too long ago, Wilhelmina Venable might have made stew out of a man named Stu. She might not have personally been the one to chop him up and render him down in a stalk of his own bones, but she was, nonetheless the one responsible. She has rained corseted, firing squad-happy terror upon the occupants of Outpost 3 for months. So why, now, are you reluctant to throw this predator in the way of an even bigger, badder predator?  
“Never mind,” says Michael in a voice of quiet menace. “I know who it was.”  
With that, he removes himself from his looming stance over your naked body and straightens his cravat. It makes you burn with shame to feel momentarily disappointed, bereft of his warmth.  
“The first interview will be at hand soon,” he says, as though you aren’t stark ass naked and nothing untoward had happened. “Get yourself together, y/n. Your bucket is waiting.”  
The interviews go on all night. Their duration ranges from bare minutes to hours. Michael has changed outfits for the occasion. He wears a burgundy crushed velvet dinner jacket beset with glittering chains and medallions and a black square of silk tucked into his breast pocket.  
You are not here merely to scrub the floor, you realize, with mounting dread, you are here to listen, to bear witness.  
One by one they enter his lair, and attempt, these faded, preening people, to win the regard of the fiend sitting across from them. And one by one they are broken like little matchsticks. Satan’s son can smell every secret thought they ever sought to hide. Michael is an anthologist of shame. He lets them sit there and marinate in it while he circles. It would be spellbinding to watch if it were not also sickening.  
It is three am now, and Mr. Linden’s turn in the hot seat. Of all the occupants of the bunker, you like Mr. Linden and his sister, Ophelia, the best. They are among the few purples who still mumble a ‘thank you’ to a gray on occasion. Mr. Linden is in his mid thirties, handsome, shy, an avid reader. He certainly does not deserve whatever cruelty Michael’s eyes promise.  
Michael, for his part, has already sniffed out the man’s masochistic tendencies.  
“You were ever married, Mr. Linden?”  
“Yes,” says Linden nervously, after a few moments of what looks like inner debate, he adds, “to a man.”  
“Noted,” says Michael. His voice is soft, low, inviting.  
You’ve had conversations with Leland Linden in the past. You know that, before the apocalypse, Linden’s husband left him for another, younger man. The incident wounded his sense of self worth and sent him into a depressive spiral. Then, just as he was beginning to peek out of his despair, the world ended. Luckily for him, his father was a well connected billionaire industrialist, and Satanist.  
“Did your husband fulfill you sexually?” asks Michael, as though the question were as banal as, ‘what is your favorite colour?’  
Mr. Linden knows that he may be harmed if he does not answer honestly. And besides that, he likes Michael, desires him, you can tell. Who wouldn’t? You desire him, for crying out loud, and you know the apocalypse was his fault.  
“Yes,” says Mr. Linden, reddening to his lavender neckerchief.  
Michael leans in, cradles his jaw in one hand, face alight with fascination. “What did he do to you, that you liked?”  
Mr. Linden laughs nervously. He looks in your direction, embarrassed to go on in front an audience. You make a show of concentrated scrubbing. But it’s nice, you think, that someone still regards you as a person, and not furniture. Your muscles ache. You’ve been at this for hours. Michael’s a real jerk.  
Michael turns and follows Linden’s gaze. When his eyes find you, he lets out a velvety huff of a laugh. “O, don’t worry about her,” he says, “she’s nobody. Besides, y/n knows that if she breathes a word of what happens in this room to anybody, I’ll feed her to the cannibals.” It’s almost sing-song, the way Michael says that.  
Mr. Linden takes a deep breath. “Ok. Ok. Well… we had a bit of a, how you would you say it…”  
“A power dynamic?” Michael supplies silkily.  
Mr. Linden’s cheeks glow like September apples. “Y-yes,” he says, looking taken aback “Yes, that was it precisely, Mr. Langdon.”  
“Did your husband have power over you or did you have power over him?”  
Mr. Linden looks dreamy and contemplative for a moment. “Well, both, I suppose. I mean, from the outside it would appear that he was the one ‘cracking the whip’ so to speak… but…”  
“He dominated you in order to please you,” says Michael, as if he finds the revelation painfully wonderful. “He hurt you in all those exquisite ways, gave you what you wanted, ergo he was your slave just as much as you were his- perhaps, more so.”  
It is hard, even for you, even for one initiated in the diabolical ways and means of this new Michael Langdon, not to hear the delectable promise in those words.  
Mr. Linden is overwhelmed, flushed, excited. You can see that he has gained confidence. He believes Michael’s insights to be an invitation. He believes it, because he wants to believe, just as you want to believe in every false fantasy you ever held for this man. “You understand,” says Mr. Linden, eyes dark and glinting as opals. “I see that you understand…” His leans in and adds in a lowered tone, “Sir.”  
“Carnal instincts are not difficult to understand, Mr. Linden,” says Michael imperiously. “Human beings cling to them as though they were heaven’s own gift. I see them as a matter of animal fact and nothing more.”  
Leland Linden fairly flutters his eyelashes. “Do you have carnal instincts, Mr. Langdon?”  
Michael leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers. “Carnal instincts I may have,” he purrs, “but they are not my priority.”  
You almost snort at that. The unbidden image of Michael Langdon’s golden head between your thighs burns in your memory. You want to give that statement its true and due scorn, you really do. But you do not. You just keep scrubbing.  
“Then what is your priority, Mr. Langdon?” says Linden, not knowing when to leave well enough alone.  
“Separating those who are worthy and deserving of salvation from the cowards and parasites who are not,” replies Michael. In the same breath he adds, “Your husband abandoned you, Mr. Linden, did he not?”  
Linden looks as though he has been slapped. He stammers, “A-after a fashion, yes.”  
“After what ‘fashion’, Mr. Linden?” demands Michael. “He claimed that he was your loving, devoted partner for eleven years. Then he got sick and tired of breathing your air, so he left you for, do I have this right-“ Michael looks down at the file in front of him for clarity, “an Instagram model?”  
Linden’s eyes water. He says nothing.  
“Answer the question, Mr. Linden.”  
With all the grace and menace of a panther, Michael lifts from his chair and crosses to Linden.  
“Y-yes,” says the poor man, nearly shaking. “It is true. David left me for ‘sizeprince707’- I mean, Jaden…”  
“I wonder, Mr. Linden,” says Michael softly, “what it could be about you that is just. So. Fucking. Unlovable.”  
Your hands fist. Soapy suds spill on the floor where you’ve wrung your sponge a little too hard.  
You wonder how many Satan groupies Michael has fucked in the last four years.  
A lot, you decide.  
Because he’s good at this: good at seducing people, humiliating them, drawing out their hopes and fears, reducing them to slobbering monuments of want. Michael Langdon 2.0 makes people eat out of his hand then slaps them with the back of it.  
Where did he learn to do all that?  
Are there torture-Geisha lessons in hell?  
You suppose that even when he was young, Michael had this extraordinary ability to make people, well, to make YOU, feel witnessed. He had seemed hungry then, for all of you, for the mundane and imperfect. You and Linden and all the others, you’re are all the same species of fool, in the end.  
Yet something about the way Michael taunts Linden feels a little too… personal.  
Michael’s face brightens viciously, “I know what it is,” he says, as though a brilliant idea has just struck him out of the blue. “It’s your neediness.”  
Mr. Linden is sobbing now.  
“From the first moment your husband spoke to you, you asked yourself how the world could defer such a perfect, priceless present upon a creature as vile, undeserving as yourself? You wondered it every time he let you touch him. You went to bed with him over and over, as if the surfeit of joy could ever make you want it less. Did you really think that he could love you?” Michael sneers. “Did you really think that he would not wake up one day and see you for what you are, in the bare assed light of day?”  
You get up, brush your knees with your hands and regard Michael unwaveringly from across the room. “That is enough,” you say loudly. For a moment, your magic unfurls like a wingspan. The candles flicker and almost go out.  
Michael looks at you, incandescent with rage.  
“Leave us,” he hisses. He is talking to Linden, but does not spare him a glance. Baffled and relieved, Linden shuffles the hell out of there.  
Michael stares at you and you think you can see his mind fracturing before your very eyes. Some delinquent part of you observes that he never looks more gorgeous than when he wants to smite you.  
“Did you have to be so cruel?” you ask, surprised at your ability to string a coherent sentence.  
Michael’s mouth twists dangerously. “Evidently, y/n, you do not yet know what cruelty is.”  
“O believe me, Michael, I do.”  
He bridles at the sound of his first name. “How dare you speak to your dark lord with such insolence?”  
“‘Dark lord’?” you scoff. “Is that what they call you at your gathering of the edge lords?”  
“I should strike you down for that! I should incinerate your immortal soul!”  
“Then do it,” you dare him. “Or else leave me alone and intimidate someone who is afraid of you. Don’t waste all of this costume drama, this thespian exuberance on me. I know you for what you are, Michael Langdon: a coward.”  
For the barest moment, hurt glitters in his eyes. Your hit has landed, you stun to realize. You instantly feel a swell of regret. For what? For needling the man you killed seven billion people?  
Michael is spellbound with fury. He strides across the room in counterattack. “Me? A coward!?” he sputters. His scent washes over you. The familiarity of it brings on a wave of inexplicable loss. You wish he would just do it already. You wonder why you are alive.  
“That ought to be your final test, Michael,” you say, baiting him. “Killing me without compunction is what a worthy antichrist would do.”  
“That would be too good for you,” he whispers, “too merciful. For you, I will save the most intricate tortures that hell can invent. You will be in torment for eternity,” he chokes the words. “Now get out.”  
You do.  
Michael knows that he is being weak.  
It is unacceptable.  
He should end this nonsense. Now. He should snap your neck like a reed. He should use your blood as an exfoliant. When he finishes you, he thinks, he will cease to feel this gnawing doubt, he will be empty and complete, the course of his life will crystalize into something meaningful. But even just now, staring at your beautiful, contemptible face, Michael could not chase away the feeling of shame, of total, granular wrongness, that the two of you should find yourselves on opposing sides of this deadly battle.  
When he first met your eyes in the bunker, after four years of absence, you looked at him as though his scowl were a warm beam of sunlight. It had made Michael wonder: why? Why, of all the beings in the universe, has he been elected to serve as agent of ruin?  
Michael did not cry when he first beheld you, looking thin and dressed like a scullery maid. He did not cry when you made your laughable attempts to appear unphased by his confessions of mass murder. He did not cry when he saw you smile to yourself while clearing plates in the dining hall- barely a smile, it was, just a shaft of light behind the eyes when you overheard some pompous thing that Dinah Stevens said- and he realized that even in the smoldering ruin of the apocalypse, you had retained your sense of humor. But he cries now.  
Because the realization conquers Michael in the matter of a millisecond: not only does he still want you, he still loves you. It is a sudden wave inside his body, that he wish would stop. He wants to squash you. He wants to triumph over you. He wants to lick and bite and tease and kiss and torture. He wants to devour you whole.  
He is disgusted by it.  
He is disgusted by himself.  
You shared fifty days together. Only fifty, all in all. Yet they were the zenith of his life.  
Miriam Meade is right about him, Michael thinks. Over the years, he has been given to understand that he is a man of excesses, and that not all of these excesses serve him well on his satanic path. Meade was particularly disapproving of the y/n robot debacle. Michael grimaces at the memory of the ignominy.  
Those bowl cutted idiots promised him authenticity.  
Michael had had to spend dozens of hours (which Meade never missed an opportunity to note was precious antichrist time that would better spent hitting the pavement elsewhere) pouring over personal details and making sure that the android was anatomically flawless. What resulted was crushing disappointment. Seven models were completed, and every one of them a failure. There was simply no ghost in the machine.  
Youbot did not have your habitually mocking wit. She let Michael say and do ridiculous, self important things and get away with it.  
Youbot didn’t try to engage Michael in philosophical discussions about witchcraft.  
Youbot didn’t do that thing where she brushed curls off his face.  
Youbot didn’t tell him not to kill people.  
Youbot didn’t burn the toast.  
Youbot’s nose didn’t crinkle when she laughed.  
Youbot didn’t sigh the way you do.  
Youbot didn’t moan the way you do.  
Youbot was entirely wrong.  
“Bro, I GUARENTEE that if you didn’t know this was an android, you’d totally think it banged just like your girlfriend, Bro.”  
For that bit of blasphemy, bowl cut number one had his tongue cut out.  
It was only after Ms. Meade discovered Michael in a truly compromising position with youbot 7.0 (namely on his bedroom floor, face buried in counterfeit cunt, weeping over the loss of the genuine article), that he had decided to abandon the entire robotic enterprise for good.  
Ms. Meade had made her signature french toast and given him a pep talk that day, in the sunlit kitchen of the house they shared before Michael ended the world.  
“Get a grip, Michael, “she’d chided. “You’re the Antichrist, not the PANTYchrist.”  
Michael’s cheeks burned.  
“You were too good for that girl, anyway,” said Ms. Meade more gently, sounding appealingly maternal in her disapproval of you. “She was distracting from your ultimate purpose, keeping you soft with amusement park rides and fornication.”  
Michael must have sighed wistfully at the remembrance of all that fornication, because Ms. Meade cleared her throat and added, “It is entirely possible that y/n was keeping you placated so that her little coven could come kill you when the time came.”  
Michael’s heart galloped. “Why would we be driving around the country if she wanted her sisters to kill me?” he protested. “I was in their school for two weeks, they had plenty of opportunity. Besides, you said she left of her own accord, that she was packing her bags when you arrived…”  
Ms. Meade waved it off with her hand as though it were an unimportant detail. “I don’t know Michael, I’m not a witch, I don’t know how they operate.” She leaned in, “But I AM a woman, and I know when a man is getting led around the back garden by his cock.”  
Michael was mortified.  
“Now don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Meade, “there is NOTHING wrong with indulging in pleasures of the flesh, Michael. Lust is your Daddy’s wheelhouse. I’m sure that some part of him had to have been proud to see you fucking your way up the eastern seaboard. But you gotta be smart about it. If somebody is keeping you weak and compromising who are, what you were born to be, you gotta cut them out.”  
“Like you and your first husband Walter?”  
“Yes,” said Ms. Meade, proudly. “And Sid. And Hank.  
Michael stabbed his french toast forlornly.  
“Look, I’m not gonna blame y/n for seeing that the antichrist is handsome fellow and deciding to take the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. I am sure she was a perfectly nice girl, Michael, but the fact is: she abandoned you. The bitch didn’t have any follow through. You really took it out of her, I think. She was crying when we arrived, saying she was through whoring herself to keep the devil away. As if whoring herself to you were anything but privilege…”  
“Can we please talk about something else, Ms. Meade?”  
And so, Michael embraced his new path with the singular devotion wrought of heartbreak.  
He thought he’d made so much progress, up until now. He thought he’d left all of that baggage behind, that he was not that insipid, needy boy anymore.  
Michael knows that his fatal error was allowing the witches to orchestrate your survival and installment at outpost 3.  
Michael had the chance, before the bombs fell, before the exquisite conflagration, to let you die.  
He could have abandoned you to the wilderness, just as you abandoned him.  
He was tested. And he failed.  
Hell, he would have saved you himself if they hadn’t, because he’s just that weak. Yours would have been the first name on the co-op’s manifest, and it would have been underlined.  
Michael has kept himself away for eighteen months. He thought that if he saw enough of what remained of the world, witnessed, unflinchingly, the horrors he has ushered, that it would make him forget he ever loved you.  
But what was the point of the apocalypse if he had no one to enjoy it with?  
Everywhere he travelled, your memory filled the dead landscape like a heartbeat. Eighteen months was a lifetime to spend on the outermost edge of your heat.  
He realizes now, it was all a lark. Michael would give his whole scorched kingdom away just to kiss your face and drink from your cunt again. That’s how bad it is.  
And you must pay for that, he decides, for leaving him. For making him a fool.  
But first, he’s going to fucking kill Wilhelmina Venable for laying a hand on you.


	4. Chapter 4

“Love, which absolves no one beloved from loving,

seized me so strongly with his charm that,

as you see, it has not left me yet.

 

Love brought us to one death.”

 

― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

 

………………

 

She’s always been a light packer, has Miriam Meade, a streamlined Satan Stan.

She isn’t taking any of her shit to hell with her when she goes, so what would be the point of getting sentimental over it now? One ought to live in such a way as to be able to cut and leave in a moment’s notice.

Sure, Miriam treasures tokens of her shopping trips with Michael: the raven black asymmetrical Gucci bustier that the Antichrist convinced her to get because he said it made her look ‘glowing and evil’, when, in reality, it makes her look matronly and ridiculous; the royal blue leather gloves procured on the same breathless excursion as Michael’s red pair, and the plethora of jackets and chokers that make it seem as though she and her favorite boy spent the apocalypse raiding leather goods outlets together.

But none of this is anything to the joy of having been Michael’s right hand woman for the past four years, of making him French toast and seeing him make his inglorious dream a reality.

Miriam bites her lip.

Parting is difficult.

But she can smell the way the wind is blowing. She knows that this is necessary, that she must disappear, lay low for a while. She’s messaged Madelyn, who is on her way in a vehicle she described gleefully as being 'like a snow plow, but for cannibals.’

Miriam didn’t even need to explain the predicament to her friend.

Miriam and Madelyn have always had this understanding. It has been the unspoken foundation of the sister like bond they share: they both love Michael more even than they love the inferno of hell. But they both know that he is still young, still sensitive, still malleable by the likes of… well, by the likes of you. 

Miriam killed you personally. She struck you in the back of the head with a paper weight. 

Yet here you are, at the end of the world, coquetting around poor Michael in your unsexy maid outfit.

Miriam would enjoy nothing more than to do it again, but to do it RIGHT this time, with a bullet neat between your eyebrows. But she suspects that that would be too much for Michael. The dear boy has been dancing along the razor’s edge of madness ever since the world got microwaved. She should have known it when the bombs fell and she turned to look at Michael and instead of weeping with joy, he just smiled a mirthless smile and went into to THAT ROOM.

Miriam knows that he has been slipping into THAT ROOM more often than usual now. Miriam always knows it’s trouble when Michael goes to THAT ROOM.

Pretty soon there will be furtive sideways glances between Michael and you. And confrontations. And fingers pointed. And blame.

There will be blame.

The boy has lived through more disappointment and rejection than befits seven lifetimes. He performed his apocalyptic duty more than competently. If she makes a stink, Michael will rebel like a hormonal teenager. But his soul is rotten enough, Miriam hopes, to ward off any permanent feelings of attachment to you. Let him enjoy then, his relic of the past. Let him enjoy, then incinerate.

In the meantime, Miriam will show herself out until such a time as when she is needed.

Because Michael WILL need her again.

Because she is his Meade.

Fouler than foul, and nearer than a mother.

…….

Michael decides not to think about what happened last night.

He will banish the whole affair entirely, pretend you never even spoke to him, let alone called him called him a ‘coward’. Such is the efficiency of his compartmentalised mind. Look at that, he thinks to himself as he strides through the antechamber toward the locked room in his quarters that be believes to be a mortal secret, he has already forgotten you!

There is a hidden room, a former potions store cupboard in this instance, in Michael’s quarters at Outpost 3.

No one save Michael is allowed to enter it, not even Miriam Meade.

Michael has had a similar situation at every outpost whose rooms and corridors he has darkened with the prize of his presence in the past 18 months. 

It is always the same.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, Michael does not think of himself as either demanding or particularly decadent. As long as he is provided with the essentials: a bedroom, an office, adequate closet space for his capes and baubles, the abject obedience of his subjects, and his one special, ultra  restricted room- he is satisfied, or rather, as satisfied as his constitution allows.

In this tiny room, Michael keeps his two most guarded, and damning possessions.

The first resides in a small box inlaid with patterns of ebony and mother of pearl. Michael is tremendously proud of how rarely he opens it nowadays: not more than once or twice a day. One must not look at the sun either directly or too often; that is how Michael feels about the last slip of underwear he ever stole from you, which he keeps, folded inside. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to discard it. He opens the box now and fingers the flimsy fabric as carefully as though it were an antediluvian treasure. He cannot even do the things he wants to with it, because he cannot risk compromising its tactile integrity. Michael remembers Miriam Meade’s admonishing words to him all those years ago and sighs. Who is he kidding? PANTYchrist he will ever be…

The second object Michael keeps in this room is a painting that he has condemned to lean against the wall in a dimly lit corner. Even tucked away like this, the canvas ebbs and throbs with a drama that threatens to tear Michael’s heart to pieces.

You once called Rembrandt Van Rijn’s ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’ “one of my favorites”, so Michael acquired it just before the bombs fell.

It was almost disappointingly easy. The head curator of the Flemish wing at the Boston Museum happened to be an enthusiastic Satanist with a penchant for juicy still lifes and designer spectacles. He had been only too eager, if a little baffled, to facilitate the acquisition. “Is my Dark Lord sure that he would not prefer something with a little more… pizzazz? ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’ maybe, or the ‘Massacre of the Innocents’?”

“No,” Michael had grated out. ‘The Prodigal Son’ was what y/n liked, and that is what he plundered.

Of course, Michael had told himself, repeatedly, that he had only preserved the loathsome artifact so that he might have the pleasure of one day of watching you see it destroyed…

The thing is achingly lovely, he has to admit. Michael might hate it, but it is magic nonetheless, with its golden threads of detail, and honey light.

It lies, does that painting.

It makes absolution look so easy, as though it could be had for no price at all, even by a slithering, murderous creature like Michael Langdon. 

The prodigal son in the picture is forgiven unconditionally, and loved simply for being alive.

Michael could never hope for such a thing, not from Constance, not from his demanding yet absentee father, and, most especially, not from you.

For you to forgive Michael, after what he has done, would be an offense to the puny, primate logic of human justice.

Still,

Michael imagines himself falling at your feet, imagines pressing his tearful face to your toes and sobbing his regret.

It both thrills and nauseates him.

For Michael knows, in that level of his mind where the sign on the door reads ‘never open’, that he would agree to anything, would live out his remaining days an insect, if it meant being allowed to inhabit the coldest, dimmest, outermost ring of your orbit.

As a child, Michael always sensed that he was different from others, that he harboured some secret, inexplicable defect. And yet he had eaten love with childish, unquestioning euphoria, yours in particular. Was it possible that you had sensed the evil that was blooming in him as riotously as one of his grandmother’s rose bushes, and loved him anyway?

Or was it an act the entire time?

An ill begotten ploy to diffuse the antichrist?

Michael knows that the latter is true.

Why else would you have abandoned him?

He tried so hard to be good for you. And yet he repulsed and disappointed you so thoroughly that he had not even warranted a ‘goodbye’.

Perhaps, he should thank you, Michael thinks. Perhaps, he wouldn’t be half the world killer he is today if you had not ripped his living heart out of his body.

It should be long dead by now, this hideous, misplaced love.

Michael has followers all over this annihilated planet that would suffocate their own siblings just for the privilege of having him taste their green bean casserole and deeming it ‘mealy’ (both a fun fact, and a true story). Who are you to deny him his fucking due? 

But how to get over it?

How to stop caring?

Michael paces the length of the tiny room. Whenever he finds his mind in such a state of disorder, he knows that there is only one thing for it: he must perform a satanic ritual. A sacrifice, he decides, is in order- but no ordinary sacrifice- it must be the sacrifice of a soul as pure and white as the fallen fucking snow.

Great. Where’s he going to find that?

Michael strides to his office and glances at the ledger containing the order of today’s interviews.

The first name on the list is Sonjia Belmont’s.

Michael frowns. That woman is hardly an innocent. Her late husband, John Astorland Belmont, killed his own father and then proceeded to live the kind of life a satyr might call ‘profligate’. He was ninety two years old on the one occasion Michael had been unfortunate enough to see him, and still living like Park Avenue’s own Caligula. Michael imagines that ‘Sonjia with a sexy J’, as she calls herself, must be the same, for all that she cultivates an image of innocent fatuousness.

Which makes Sonjia Belmont useless.

Except….

Except for the fact that she seems to have developed a friendly rapport with you...

Yes, it would appear that you have functioned, lo these many months- and much to Michael’s simmering rage- as a kind of maid to Ms. Belmont.

Michael knows that you were ride or die for your coven. You are loyal to your brood, loyal to your kind, loyal, it would seem, to everyone but him. Michael wonders if the same dumb, canine loyalty has not now been activated for Ms. Belmont. She has been your near constant companion for 18 months, after all…

Michael’s mood lifts.

He knows what to do.

It has been diverting enough, playing with his food, thinks Michael, but the time has come to fucking eat.

……

The night you and Michael have your explosive argument, you wait till you are well beyond his sight to start crying.

A little while later, with your whole body viciously smarting from hours of pointless floor scrubbing, and your mind a troubled morass, you give way to the undertow of sleep.

When you awake, hours later, you wonder if it is really true that you lay across Michael Langdon’s bed naked.

You remember the vague disgust with which he looked at you.

You remember the monstrous ease with which he demolished interviewee after interviewee.

No matter how stubborn your efforts are to deny it, you have the creeping sense that some of that may have been for your benefit.

‘For you, I will save the most intricate tortures that hell can invent,’ Michael told you.

If only he knew how consummately he has already succeeded.

It takes a great effort, you find, to go on as before, to continue as a ghost. You don’t know how much longer you have left of being alive, what with Michael and Ms. Meade walking around, wearing coordinated outfits and looking like a goth themed ‘motherboy’ event. 

The morning is so alarmingly normal that you might be forgiven for thinking your night with Michael -your sordid almost assignation followed by terminal floor scrubbing- was all a fantasy.

But the haunted look on Leland Linden’s face, and the abashed glances he casts in your direction when you are serving cubes of breakfast, confirm otherwise. When first he sees you, Leland startles. You realize that he was expecting you to be dead for the way you stood up to Michael.

You are wondering how best to broach the subject, how to tell Mr. Linden that none of what Michael said about him last night was the truth, when you hear Sonja Belmont barrelling into the dining room, barely able to contain her excitement over her scheduled interview with ‘Mr. Langdon.’

She sidles up to Linden, oblivious to his mood. “Noon meeting with Mr. Langdon,” she tells her friend. “I’ve been masturbating all morning just to take the edge off. That way, when I see him, it’ll just be ‘O hello!’”

Leland gives her an effortful smile. “Perhaps it isn’t going to end up the way you think,” he says softly. “You’re expecting him to be ‘fun mean’, but what if he’s just ‘mean mean’?”  

Sonjia’s laughter is roaring and unstoppable. She tells Leland not to be silly, that she is one of the last women in the world. “Look around you, Leland, look at what else is left,” she gestures all about her. “If this bunker is any indication of the median attractiveness levels on this planet right now, that makes me basically the new Giselle, if Giselle was still in her young, hot days, or like, alive.”

“My Father says that Giselle is in Outpo-”

“That’s not the point, Leland!” says Sonjia, waving away the subject.

Sonjia’s abundant, white blonde hair is arranged in a complicated style which is partly flowing down her back. Amethysts wink at you from her ears and the coils of braids about her head. Her dress is of purple silk, cut low and embroidered with gold. She looks so alive in the candlelight. A frivolous, yet, in her own way, indominable woman.

“Where’s Venable?” she asks suddenly, looking around at the distinctly Venable-free dining room. The atmosphere is more relaxed than usual, as if a great purple pall has been lifted.

“The rumour is that she was called into Langdon’s rooms in the middle of the night,” whispers Linden.

Sonjia’s face falls.

“No, no, not in THAT way,” says Linden, “in an ‘and she was never seen or heard from ever again’ way.”

“Well, I’ll be glad if I don’t see or hear from her for a hot minute,” says Sonjia quartering her gelatinous cube with a fork and bringing it to her lips as though it were caviar.

You hope with all of your heart that it isn’t true, that you have not unwittingly caused the death of Ms. Venable. Maybe Michael has just sent her away to another Outpost. Or maybe she has already graduated to the so called ‘Sanctuary’, being as she is particularly bloodthirsty and all…

Noon rolls around and you are relieved when Michael does not summon you to observe Sonjia’s interrogation.

Relieved…. but also mildly disappointed.

It is a moral failure on your part, you know. Michael murdered nearly everyone you’ve ever loved. But even as you despise him, your body and soul protest his absence.

Later, you realize that you needn’t have been so dramatic: you are summoned to Michael’s quarters before dinner.

You are surprised when he greets you at the door of his office.

You gird yourself to neither recoil nor press yourself along the black-outfitted length of him when he courteously motions to come in, and your arm accidentally brushes his. But you cannot resist stealing a breath of his hair, and wondering what all of that gold that falls over his shoulders would feel like to the touch. 

Michael is in such a good mood, and is so menacingly hospitable, that you know at once something very bad has either just happened or is about to happen.

“I trust you slept well last night,” Michael says.

“Yes,” you reply dumbly.

You feel awkward, standing there, not knowing where to go or what he has planned. The room is dimly lit by a crackling fire. Shadows dance across Michael’s face. That face, good lord. That face seems to have been designed with the intention of making all other human faces look like clown faces. That face, in the firelight, is a weapon of worldly dominion.

Does Michael even remember last night, you wonder. Does he remember railing at you and promising an eternity of torment?

You were bold last night. You called him a coward. Where has all that boldness gone now?

Michael watches you with an air of total control. His lean figure is backlit by the fire.

“Michael last night-”

 “Last night you were impertinent and disrespectful,” he finishes.

“And unkind,” you surprise him by adding.

There is glimmer of something like astonishment in Michael’s glacial silt eyes, but his expression quickly shutters. “Unkind?”

“I called you a coward,” you remind him. “That was not kind.”

“You think that you have wounded me? You believe that you have that power?” Michael’s tone is thick with incredulity.

“Not at all. But I do try not to be unkind, just as a general rule.”

Michael looks annoyed. “Have you ever once considered, in all of our acquaintance, that you ought to revise your morals when dealing with a man like me?”

“No,” you answer honestly. “Never. Not even once.”

Something electric crackles, for an instant, in the yawning gulf between you and Michael Langdon. The phrase ‘in all of our acquaintance’ hangs in the air like a witch’s spell. 

Then Michael grimaces, and shakes his head, as if to shake some inopportune thought away.

“Perhaps you will change your mind when you see what I have to show you.”

You don’t have time to wonder what this could mean.

Michael telekinetically opens the doors leading from his office into the bedroom. You swallow your fear and stagger forward. What you see when you reach the threshold places a bottomless void where, seconds ago, your guts were.

Everything in Michael’s bedroom is neat and ordered save for Sonjia Belmont, who is trussed up from the ceiling by her arms, which look to be attached there by two overlong black scarves. She is wearing her dress from breakfast, but her hair is unkempt, and her expression one of paralyzed fear.

“Ms. Belmont!” you scream as you run to her. “Are you all right? Has he hurt you?”

Sonjia comes back to herself. She is surprised to see you here. “Y/n? What are you doing here?” She looks to Michael. “You aren’t going to sacrifice y/n as well, are you?” she asks him in horror. Then Sonjia Belmont does something which you are not prepared for, something which you never in your life thought you would see a billionaire bunker person do: she pleads for your life. “Don’t sacrifice her, please, Mr. Langdon, she’s no good. Y/n has told me all about the wicked things she has done up there in the overworld… Her heart is no good to you!”

You want to hug the woman forever and ever, for all the futility of her argument.

“You don’t have to tell me that, Ms. Belmont,” Michael says. He turns to you with pitiless eyes. “I know that y/n here is a faithless, conniving little trollop.”

Sonjia looks confused. “Then why did you bring her here, Mr. Langdon? You s-s-said you n-needed to-” Sonjia can barely get through the words, “e-eat, a pure heart to, um, whatever you needed to do that for…”

You whip your head round to him, “MICHAEL!”

You know that Michael has done this on at least one occasion. You scramble to remember that horrible day when Cordelia taped those news paper clippings to her ‘Antichrist board’, and everyone at Robichaux’s learned what ‘y/n’s boyfriend’ was busy doing out in the world. You turn the images over in your mind, of innocence massacred, of Michael presiding over it all in all. The pieces slide into devastating place. You hear nothing but the pounding of your heart in your ears.

“Please, Michael,” you beg quietly. “Let me take her place.”

Michael blinks and cocks his head. He looks greatly amused. “But I need a pure soul for sacrifice,” he says. “And, wouldn’t you know it, your maritally pedigreed little friend actually fits the bill better than any of the others. To be honest,” he adds, glancing at Sonjia disapprovingly, “I was sure that she had poisoned her husband’s Metamucil. But NO!, she actually loved the geezer, mourned him like fucking Neapolitan widow…”

“Michael,” you repeat. “Let me take Sonjia’s place. You can have my soul to hole up in whatever neighborhood of hell you want. I will accept eternal damnation- just let Ms. Belmont go.”

It is not simply self sacrifice, on your part. There is opportunism and foresight to what you are suggesting. If Michael kills you and puts your soul in hell, then perhaps you can look for your sisters there… Perhaps Michael has not fully dispensed with their souls just yet. It wouldn’t be unlike him to keep them in hell for a while, to torment. After all, what are Michael Langdon and his apocalypse without a scandalized audience?

You think that, maybe, if you could only find Cordelia, or Queenie, or Mallory, you might all be able to find a way out of this mess…. Cordelia always spoke about Mallory as though she had some truly unique power that even her coven must not be told about until the time was right.

You look at Sonjia Belmont’s tear tracked face and feel a tugging at your heat. The whole world has been scorched and toppled. But there are pin points of light even in this bunker. As long as Michael Langdon has not smothered everything that breathes, there is yet hope.

“Please, Michael.”

Michael’s gaze flays you. “What exactly,” he asks, stepping closer, until there is barely a sliver of distance between your bodies, “is it that you think you are bargaining with?”

You feel heat pull at your core. Your chest is close to Michael’s and your nipples, god damn your traitorous nipples, are rising to the occasion. How humiliating to be reacting like this. You wish that the floor would open up and swallow you whole, deliver you to hell NOW, so that you don’t have to suffer the indignities of this middle man.

But, as this does not seem as though it is likely to happen, you take a long, deliberate breath and raise your face to Michael’s. The situation is dire indeed. But there is one thing that buoys you through: it is the knowledge that Michael Langdon once wanted you. This Prince of Darkness once peered through the crack in the door of the bathroom in a vain attempt to watch you take a shower. He stared at you once, without any malice. He stared, just like a boy.

“It will be infinitely more satisfying if you do it to me, Michael,” you say softly. “We both know that.”

You have synched your fate with those words, you know in an instant.

Michael does not look back to the crumpled form of Sonjia Belmont as he uses his magic to unfasten the ties the bind her to the ceiling. You swallow hard, knowing you are about to take her place. 

“You can go now, Ms. Belmont,” Michael tosses languidly over his shoulder.

Sonjia clutches at her masses of skirts as she rushes out of the room. “Sorry, y/n!” she calls before you hear the door of the adjacent room slam shut.

Michael’s eyes have not left you. “If you intend to haggle on the meagre strength of your feminine wiles, y/n, then I think I should get my money’s worth.”

You wonder if that means sucking his dick.

The idea of that doesn’t exactly disgust you, let’s just leave it at that.

“Strip,” Michael commands.

This is the second consecutive time within the space of 24 hours that you have divested yourself of clothing under Michael’s watchful eye, you think, as you drop your gray dress in a rumbled pile on the floor, and feel the cool air of Michael’s makeshift torture chamber caress your bare ass.

For a terrifying moment, Michael Langdon becomes your puppeteer. You feel yourself being lifted above the ground and floating, against every willing fiber in your body toward the restraints suspended from the bedroom ceiling. It has been a while since you found yourself the subject of magic- whether it be witch or warlock or satanic in origin. You forgot just how vulnerable it can make you feel.

The cloth is still warm from Sonjia as it wraps around your wrists, silken and secure.

You know that writhing around would only make Michael glory in your struggle, so you keep yourself still and dignified as his eyes trail over you.

Then the fiend actually turns around and goes to get something from his office. For a moment you think he might leave you like this, hanging like a lewd ornament.

Michael is gone for what seems like forever.

It is only when you are beginning to panic a little that you hear his voice in the doorway.  

“You look so delectable like this, y/n,” he says, “trussed up for me like a prize hare.” A thrilling surge of adrenaline floods your body as he approaches. He is holding a riding crop, you realize, Ms. Venable’s favorite toy: leather with an embellished platinum handle. Michael catches you noticing. He slices an elegant line in the air.

“O this? Just a little souvenir from that harridan of a Victorian frock coat.” Michael holds the instrument to the light, “It’s always the virgins,” he says, admiring the enameling, “who are the biggest fucking freaks.”

You close your eyes. More slaughter, you think, more death. Even when his appetite for it would appear to have been glutted by the order of billions, Michael Langdon still can’t stop himself. “What have you done with Ms. Venable?” you ask shakily.

Instead of answering your question, Michael observes with disgust, “It comes naturally to you, doesn’t it, empathy for your oppressors?”

“You didn’t have to kill her, Michael.”

“You disapprove?”

“Why should you care if I disapprove?”

“I don’t,” says Michael, with a sharpness that suggests otherwise.

Your confidence surges. “Are you sure?” you ask, baiting him. “Or didn’t you believe that I would open my legs in gratitude when I found out you’d killed a woman because she caned me?”

There is pale fire in Michael’s eyes. “I don’t need gratitude to have what’s between your legs,” he spits out.

“But you’d like it.”

Michael raises his chin imperiously. Nostrils flare. “You presume too much.”

The smell, the power of him, engulfs you as he draws near. If he were to kiss you now, you think, you would incinerate… 

But why would he kiss you? You no longer warrant such affection. Michael has made that, at least, abundantly clear. He may toy with you, but in the end, you mean less to him than dust.

Michael brings the tongue of the riding crop to the base of your throat. He holds it there for a moment, then watches it descend. The sweep of dark lashes against his cheeks as he is doing this makes something within your chest collapse. Perhaps you see a little of the old Michael there as his lips part, full, sensuous, and uninhibited. He trails the riding crop around your breasts and down to your navel, then back again. You fight to keep your face neutral as it slides past your belly and lingers- just a ghost of a touch- at the apex of your cunt.

“Your little friend Sonjia is missing out, isn’t she?” Michael verily purrs. “What do you suppose she is going to tell your friends in the bunker?”

You do your best to keep your voice even. “I don’t know, Michael, probably that you trussed me up and are going to cut out my heart and barbeque it…”

“I eat them raw,” corrects Michael in all seriousness.

“Either way it is pretty disgusting.”

“I’m not going to do that to you.”

“Well aren’t I lucky?” you say in a cavalier manner that you hope will mask the abject odour of your fear.

“No, Y/n,” says Michael. “You have no heart. I am merely going to fuck you.”

Faced with the full spectre of the humiliation you are about to endure, you grab for the first invective that comes to mind. “’Merely’ is right, Michael.”

Michael blinks. You gloat inwardly as the meaning computes. The way he looks at you then leaves you in little doubt that you have just dug your finger into a very old wound. You are almost instantly sorry.

Michael continues to stroke you o so gently with the riding crop, and you find yourself wondering how long the instrument will serve as his proxy. Michael seems to read your mind.

“You’ve got a lying mouth,” he says. “I shall have to stop it.”

The sensation of having your lips parted by hellish magic, then kept apart, in direct contradiction to your own flailing will- is both violating and disorienting. Michael lifts the riding crop from your mons and places it so that it lies horizontally across your lower lip. Then, he seals your mouth over the object.  

“That is so much better,” he says.

You thrash in protest. This accomplishes nothing.

You squeeze your eyes shut. You’d rather not look at Michael again, if it can be helped. Because you despise him more than anyone who has ever roamed the pre or post irradiated earth…

And yet you are also helplessly aroused by him.

And deeper than that…

There is something heartrendingly familiar about this feeling, this fever that comes with being the focal point of Michael Langdon’s attention. You realize, with mounting shame, that some part of you has hoped for this. You’ve been without Michael for four years, and without him, life has tasted like ash.

Michael steps forward and you wonder if he is about to strike you, or lick you lasciviously the way he did last night. Instead of doing either of these things, he tucks an errant strand of hair behind your ear.

“Breathe,” he commands, gently.

You do.

If your mouth was not magically barred from talking, this is where you might, MIGHT, attempt a negotiation. 

But there can be none.

Michael’s palm is ghosting where the riding crop was a moment ago. It takes almost all of your effort to keep your pelvis from careening toward him.

“It is a vicious thing,” says Michael softly, feathering his fingers over your folds and wringing a shiver from you, “to want what you know you should not.”

His lovely, tipped eyes are boring into you and you look away, desperate to find something in the room onto which you might latch your attention, so as to ride out this ordeal without literally ‘riding it out’. A lot of magic hinges upon this function: the ability to dim corporeal circumstance with the brightness of one’s concentrated imagination. What you would not give now for an undetectable spell to immolate you from feeling… and from wanting. Your head tips back in pleasure.

Michael slides his lips against your temple and taunts you as his palm cups your cunt. He slips one finger in. “Wet,” he pronounces.

Well, no shit.

It doesn’t take BBC’s Sherlock to figure that out, genius.

Michael rubs. You feel his teeth against your cheek, then jaw, then jugular.

“Look at how needy you are,” he whispers against your throat. His thumb is teasing against your clit. You try very hard, but you can’t help grinding your pussy needily into his hand. You widen your stance and push yourself obscenely toward him.

You will regret this, you know.

Michael will pick over your bones and laugh at you later, you know.

But no one is laughing now.

Certainly not Michael as his deft fingers part your labia. His thumb rolls in slow circles. Your arms protest against their restraints. You want to bring your hands round to his head, to bring his face to yours, to taste Michael’s soft mouth again.

But, of course, this is an impossibility.

Michael’s fingers are stroking and rubbing your slickness. It feels utterly delicious, but he stops just short of giving you everything you need. 

His control is agony.

“Shall I remove the crop from your mouth now?” he asks. “Have you learned your lesson in according the proper respect to your Dark Lord?”

You nod. Because you would do anything to ensure that he keeps touching you. You need Michael to relent and give you what your body needs.

The old Michael would have plunged in.

The old Michael would have been only too eager, would have been falling over himself to gratify you.

The old Michael would have been slurping you up in seconds flat if he ever caught wind, even for a second, that you might be amenable to it.

But this new Michael…. This new Michael is an asshole who takes.

His.

Time.

Torturing.

You.

Michael removes the riding crop from your mouth. The magic that muzzled you falls away with a small crack. You hear yourself gasp. Before you can even think to admonish him, Michael rolls those talented fingers with molasses slowness over your flesh. His golden head dips to your breast. You hiss your pleasure as his full, red mouth closes around your areola. He laves. He sucks. His mouth is so warm that only hell could have conspired to make it.

“O god…” you breathe.

Michael removes his lips and regards you with a sinister twist of a smile. “I appreciate the sentiment, y/n, but I am just the opposite, remember? Besides, she could never make you feel as good as I do…”

You roll your eyes. “You never know when to shut up, Michael…”

“You forget yourself,” he says, a soft, yet dangerous reproach. He squeezes your nipple so hard it makes you wince, then rolls it delicately again, and laughs.

His other hand is still working your cunt, dissolving your brain. You are riding it with abandon now, hips moving, shamelessly, desperately seeking. You moan his name, bury your face in the velvety crook of his shoulder where it is warm and nothing can judge you.

You think you would happily die if you could do it again, if only for one last time: reduce Michael to a babbling mass of need. Because that is what he is doing to you, as much as your dignity rails against it. You want Michael Langdon- in whatever iteration- to be yours again. You pull his hateful black shirt between your teeth. Fuck him. Fuck his fashions. 

Then Michael stops.

And abruptly removes his hand from your pussy.

He steps back and accesses you, adjusting his shirt where you have bitten it. You become aware, once more, that you are a thing that Michael has captured and tied up and made rut into his hand.

Your face is slick with sweat. There is air on your cunt and Michael’s saliva on your nipples. You can only imagine the wonton picture you must make.

Michael’s tongue darts out to moisten his lips. It lingers there, and you can’t help watching it, then looking away.

“I wonder,” he says slowly, “should give you what you want?”

The question produces panic in you. You ache between your legs. Does he understand that? You ACHE.

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” says Michael. He circles you with the purposeful grace of a stalking predator. “After all…” he says, coming close and trailing one warm finger down the middle of your spine, “think of all the times you denied me….”

You whip your neck round to stare at Michael. Is he eluding to… could he be talking about…?

“So many times I asked, y/n, only to be left frustrated…”

“Michael, we were in PUBLIC!”

“Silence,” he commands. And you obey, because Michael trails two clever fingers down the line of your stomach and down, down, down to curve into you, slowly. “You should have spread your legs and let me lick that pussy EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.” The obscene words he speaks are belied by vice taut composure.

You gasp as Michael shoves his fingers back into your cunt, then drags them slickly back, then in again. He keeps going, building speed, fucking you into oblivion. And then it all happens too quickly. You are washed with pleasure, pulling from your pussy in widening rays. The intensity makes you sob.

Were the silken or Michael not holding you, you are sure you would be quite unable to stand.

Michael stays at your face, bearing smug witness to the seizing aftershocks of his ministrations. Then he lifts up his hand and examines it.

“You’ve dirtied my fingers,” he says, as though it were a disdainful observation.  “Clean them off.” He offers you two slick, beringed digits.

You stare at Michael, then open your mouth obediently. His fingers plunge in. You taste your own essence. 

The line of Michael’s throat dips. His pale eyes are riveted to your mouth. He is watching you do it. So you decide to put on a show, darting your tongue out to lick like a cat. You smile when you hear his breathing become ragged.

You can see the exact moment Michael breaks.

He mumbles a curse word before swooping in. He kisses you with such insistent force that it nearly knocks you off your feet. Michael licks at your lips, sucks, tastes your pussy there, and you realize: that’s why he is doing it, because he regrets letting you have it, regrets sharing even a drop, because he is selfish and can’t stand to miss a single taste. 

“Michael…” you moan into his mouth.

“Did I say you could talk?” he rasps.

You shake your head, too overcome by him to do aught else.

Michael twines his tongue with yours with panting desperation. You can’t help but participate. Your body has never betrayed you more thoroughly.

“I am going to untie you now, y/n,” Michael says as steadily as he can muster between kisses. “We are going to go to the bed.”

O are you now?

You weigh your options, glancing in the direction of Michael’s pristinely made bed. He clasps your chin roughly and turns your attention back to him.

“I am going to lie down and you are going to sit on my face with your ass facing me,” he instructs.

“W-what?”

“Did I fucking stutter?”

“No-no it’s just-”

Michael, takes his index finger and dips it into the reservoir between your legs. “Then I am not so sure I can untie you…” he says sucking his finger into his mouth. “Maybe I should have Ms. Belmont summoned back here and perform my sacrifice after all.”

What an utterly demented thing to say, you think. What a demented thing for you to be a part of.

 “Fine.”

The scarves fall abruptly from your wrists and float to the floor. You bring your arms down. They are numb from lack of circulation. Michael takes your palms in each of his hands and rubs mindless circles with his thumbs. You find this one uncharacteristically gentle, solicitous gesture more affecting than anything he has done all evening, and hope that Michael will not notice how close you are to tears.

The bed is bigger than you remember it. You walk toward its ivory plane with the trepidation of an old school bride on her wedding night. But instead of anticipating sex with a loving, if initially clueless, young husband, you are steeling yourself to squat over the face of the Antichrist.

You wonder if Michael plans on shedding any clothing.

And if he will make you touch him.

You know that you should recoil from the very idea.

You know that, under the circumstances, it ought to make you want to retch.

As if in answer to your unspoken question, Michael proceeds to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. He slides it off himself in a fluid motion. You are bankrupt of shame for the way you stare at him.

The planes and curves of him are burnished by firelight. If his torso has changed at all, in the last four years, it is only in that it has become a little leaner, washed of all vestiges of boyish swell. You sigh.

It is strange, you think, that you are preparing to mount Michael’s face, and yet he has never felt so remote, so utterly beyond your reach. To think that there was a time when he molded himself to you in his sleep every night, as though any space between your skin and his was a defilement of the natural order.

Michael is playing a game with you, you know. The culmination of this game will likely be your death. But the game will have many, humiliating stages before it reaches that end.

Part of the game, you realize, is that Michael is getting to keep his pants on. He wants to ‘wear the pants’ so to speak, even as he gorges on your pussy. 

Everything proceeds as Michael has commanded. Your face prickles with humiliation as you climb the bed and straddle him. His shoulders are smooth and hot against your legs. You want to die. You hope you aren’t dripping on him right now. 

You try not to think about the view that the antichrist is getting, but Michael’s rough breathing won’t let you forget.

You wish he would hurry up and get this over with.

Why does it have to be a religious fucking experience every time?

Why won’t be just let you hate him?

You look behind you and catch Michael’s face as he spreads your cunt open. He looks like he is about to cry. He runs a finger from your top to your perineum, so gentle and reverent that it makes you tremble. His jaw slackens with wonder. Something in you cracks and you know it isn’t long before the abyss… You turn away from Michael’s face, unable to bear it. You find yourself faced, instead, with an impressive, leather-bound erection. ‘I have done that,’ you think to yourself deliriously. Then Michael takes bruising hold of your hips, crushes your pussy onto his face, and thoughts dissolve like sugar in coca cola. 

Michael moans. The sound reverberates deep into your flesh. He is hungry, losing himself already, devouring like an animal. 

Tears are falling from your face, landing on your chest, or sinking further to meet the calamity of your cunt. You are not sure if they are tears of joy or tears of regret or tears of release. A ridiculous thought, a beloved, honey toned memory, lights the periphery of your consciousness: of younger Michael throwing a hissy fit at Applebee’s, and you feel as though you might crumble from the sheer crashing force of your love for him. How could four years have passed without him? Your world was howling wasteland long before a single bomb fell.

Michael worries at your pussy, sucking and licking and groaning as though forever lost to reason. You can feel his perfect nose push against you as he burrows deeper, as he flattens his tongue against your clit and the sopping, sensitive, surrounding flesh and draws it into his mouth. Michael, you realize with a thrill of delight, has shrugged off the affectation of his indifference as surely as one of his billowing capes. He is eating you out with abandon, as if he is alive only for the pleasure of doing this.

Michael may open his veins for Satan every now and again, but you both know that it is this pussy right here that he worships above anything else.

You scream his name and it only drives him further into madness. You reach for the zippered fly of his pants. The leather is almost scalding to the touch. Michael’s body jerks in surprise. He allows you to reach in past the waist band and bring out his iron hard cock. It takes your breath away to see it after all these years. If you were only to tip yourself forward, you think, you could wrap your lips there.

Michael is groaning, tugging your hips onto his face. You grasp his shaft with your hand and pepper it with addled, butterfly kisses. He answers this by pushing one finger, then two into your slick channel. His fingers thrust. You have a notion that you are about to take the antichrist into your mouth. But Michael has other ideas and pulls you toward him, grips you deeper onto his face. You are too overwhelmed by his probing tongue and fingers to think of how indecent it is to be rubbing your slippery parts all over the mouth and chin and nose of the man who ended the world. Michael’s nails dig into your ass flesh with thoughtless, inconsiderate need.

If you happen to be alive tomorrow, you’ll have aches and bruises to show for this.

What will Michael have to show for it?

You remember the days when his lips were always plump and red from loving your cunt too much. It is like a kick in the chest, pulling all the air out of you.

Then Michael rivets his finger a certain way, and you careen over the edge.

Your mind liquefies and you are screaming, splintering. You cum with more shuddering force than ever in memory.

‘End of the world sex’ is evoked commonly enough. You just never thought you’d have the bad taste to proceed…

As you are come down from your climax, you have a notion that you are about to take Michael into your mouth. The antichrist has other ideas.

“No,” says Michael.

You spring off of him before he has the presence of mind to clamp your cunt back onto his face and hollow you out from the inside.

You expect anger. Or another petty demonstration of his authority. 

But when you look at Michael, you are surprised.

He is neither happy that your pussy is gone, nor blustering over it. It is as though the immediate problem of its absence is by far the most benign of the multitude he faces. He looks up, as though woken from a thick, blanketing sleep. His hair fans against the pillow like spun gold. His face is tear stained. Michael is, as he has always been, an exquisite corruption of the western folkloric image of a the invariably blue eyed, blonde haired angel.

You put your hand lightly on Michael’s chest and are taken aback, momentarily, by the racing human heart you feel there, you lean down and press a kiss to wet cheek.

Michael turns to you, abrupt and surprised, as though he has been singed.

For a moment, the expression on his face, is raw and longing, then he wipes it neutral. “That’s not what I want,” he whispers. He touches your nipple with the tip of his finger. The unmistakably proprietary way he twists it makes you cry out.

“What do you want?” you ask, shamed to feel your desire rising again.

“Get on all fours.”

You do it. And tell yourself you don’t mind that he hates wanting to fuck you, and hates you for pulling him down into the muck and mire of the human.

You love Michael Langdon. But he wants you only for his whore.

It would be unsporting of you to complain about this, you think. Michael has ushered in the first age of the post-human. What does it matter to the forests of the dead that he does not love you?

Michael dispenses with the leather pants.

You wait impatiently for him to mount you, your drenched folds pulsing.

“You thought you could corrupt me from my path, y/n,” Michael rasps against your ear. “But it is you who has been ruined and corrupted.”

The harsh words are undermined by the way he caresses your back as he positions himself behind you. His mouth finds your arched neck and peppers wet, mindless kisses there.

Michael has prepared you so ruthlessly that you can only gasp in wide mouthed pleasure the instant he pushes his cock into you. The feeling of being filled by him shakes shameless, inarticulate vowels from your lips. You lean forward and press your face into the pillows to stop yourself. You pant and shiver but it must be contained. Michael must not know how thoroughly he owns you.

You have no time to waste in either joy or incredulity over the fact that Michael’s fingers are at your clit. His dick is too hot, too thick, too deep. Pressure is building too sweetly and too relentlessly against that spot inside you that makes all the mysteries of the universe seem measly. Your second orgasm of he night rips through you like an earthquake. 

You turn and look back, expecting to see a powerful being luxuriating in your defeat.

Instead, you find Michael lost. Entirely lost.

Long tendrils of his hair are falling, disheveled, molding to gleaming sweat as he moves. His beautiful face is a rictus of shattering pleasure. The fringes of his lashes are damp with something you can’t bear to speculate about. You raise yourself upward, arching your back and pressing even further onto his cock. You raise your arms over your own head to loop around Michael’s neck. When he does not protest, or tear your head off, you pull him closer. Michael licks the pulse in your throat. He ruts into you with a pained groan and the whole ruined earth seems to buck with his release.  

Later, you are lying curled against Michael’s side as he studies the sloping ceiling with greater intensity than is necessary.

You are drunk on the warm sensation of his body, and it is made all the more heady because you don’t imagine Michael will allow you to remain like this for long.

He is only being nostalgic.

You find yourself thinking about the nights when you slept together outdoors, beneath the distant, twinkling violence of stars.

Had Michael conceived of ending the world yet? Would he ever have, if it had not been for the reams of humanity eager to help him do it?

You suppose it does not really matter. There are too many such questions that arise when one sits down to consider the nature of Michael’s agency on earth.

But one thing is certain: the cruellest thing that Satan ever did, in all his storied history, was to imbue his antichrist with the need for love. There is no human condition that can compete with Michael Langdon’s for sheer misery, and no living being who, to your mind, needs love more. 

You take the opportunity of kissing him while you can.

You feel his muscles tighten under you and regret the endearment.

“You’re going to be taken to Outpost 9,” says Michael in a tone void of all expression.

You heart flaps and flails like a caged bird in your chest. “What is at Outpost 9?” you ask, wondering if that is where he lives.

“Nothing.”

“Then why don’t you kill me instead?”

“Because I know what you are planning,” Michael says without looking at you. “You want to go to hell so that you can look for what’s left of your coven,” He raises himself coolly from your arms and sits up on the bed. “I am afraid that all of your… enthusiasm tonight was for naught, y/n. At least your sisters aren’t going be there to witness your walk of shame this time round.”

What Michael is saying is so vile that it barely computes. But it computes enough to throw you into confusion.

“Michael, what are you talking about? What ‘walk of shame’?”

“It must have been humiliating to have to crawl back to your sisters after I defiled you over and over. They must have recoiled to have you back among them. I wonder if any of them could even look you in the eye after our little sojourn.”

O.

The realization shatters over you. You feel a grief so total that it seems to dissolve all of your nerves and bones. Michael actually thinks- this little piece of shit- actually believes that you abandoned him…

You leap up and grab his shoulders. “Michael, listen to me very carefully,” you say. “I don’t know what you think happened to me that night at the motel four years ago, but I promise, it isn’t whatever those Satanists told you.”

Michael springs from the bed in sudden, incandescent fury. “LIAR,” he bellows so loudly that the candles nearly flicker out. For a moment, Michael wears the white demon face that must make others quake in their bones. But you are not afraid of that demon face. After being alive without him for so long, what could possibly exist to frighten you? Any aspect of Michael that deigns to reveal itself, whether loving or demonic, is a treasure hard won after eons of searching in the wilderness.

“Michael, what do you think you know?” you ask.

“My Ms. Meade told me what happened,” he spits out. “How you left me in the motel. She said you told her you were finished with me, that you were tired of me and tired of whoring yourself to keep the devil away.”

Your eyes shut against the slander. You are utterly horrified at the same time as something clicks in place. “Michael,” you say desperately, “how could you think-”

“How could I think you loved me?” interrupts Michael. Candlelight plays on his beautiful snarling face. You see a flicker of the old Michael there, the one lost in mists of uncertainty, the one who would have crawled through broken glass just to be allowed to hold your hand. “You played the part so perfectly, (y/n), baiting me, using me, making a fool of me…”

“No, no Michael, listen!”

“No!”

Before you can speak, Michael has you in a telepathic chokehold. You gasp like a beached fish as you feel the invisible force squeeze tighter and tighter.

“Why would I kill you?” Michael asks harshly. “When I can torture you until you are mine again?” He chokes the words out. His eyes shimmer with the promise of tears. 

You can barely croak. “M-michael, you f-f-fucking idiot,” you sputter, “I have a-a-always been y-yours.”

You swoon on the spot, and sink to your knees, like the heroine of a gothic novel.

Michael’s body is around you before you feel the ground.

“Michael,” you whisper as he clutches you, “I never left you. I would never, I never…” you choke back sobs, because this is important, because he must hear, he must understand. “I wanted us to be together all of our lives. I literally fucking died for you, and I would do it again a thousand times over. How could you believe her? You ass…”

Michael is shaking as the top of his hand meets the confounding feeling of your small, cold palm. You slowly bring his hand up to the back of your head. He touches the knot of scar tissue there, the area where Cordelia worked some of the most accomplished magic of her career. The area is relatively small and usually well concealed by hair. But Michael carries a map of your body in his mind, and that was not there before.  

Michael’s tearful eyes burn into yours.

“Th-they s-struck you…”

“Yes,” you answer. “I suppose your Ms. Meade was only doing what she saw as her duty…”

Michael’s lagoon pale eyes widen, then squeeze shut in an expression of total self-loathing. He gasps for air. “I will destroy her,” he rasps.

“Michael no. No more death. The important thing is that we find Mallory.”

Michael is in his own world, in a torrent of guilt and pain. But the name ‘Mallory’ pierces the fog. He remembers the serene face of the one witch whose soul he had been inexplicably incapable of incinerating. He must have tried and tried a hundred times but she remained infuriatingly inflammable.   

He remembers the way the demons had looked at said witch when he had brought her to hell: with awe. They looked at that girl as though she were a returning conqueror and not a manacled captive. Then, after Michael had spent an age formulating the PERFECT personal hell for Mallory, namely having to watch her coven get killed over and over again, the demons had refused to participate. None of the gruesome punishments the Antichrist subjected them to had succeeded in changing their minds.

For the life of him, Michael has been unable to figure out why.

But that is not what is important, right now.


	5. Chapter 5

“Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss”

― John Milton, Paradise Lost

……………………………………

Minutes pass and all Michael does is slip on a burgundy robe, and pace aimlessly around the candle lit room.

The bed upon which he so recently fucked you into oblivion lies rumpled and abandoned.

You are nude, which seems wrong, for this, so you reach for the nearest garment in sight which happens to be one of Michael’s capes, and wrap it haphazardly about yourself.

When, at last, you cross the room to him, Michael lets out a broken wail and sways forward. He hunches, as though unable to stand fully upright, as though the insides of his guts are torn and bleeding.

 “What have I done?” he breathes. His voice is tiny, the way it was on the infernal night when you first met, when Michael was thrown away like an old, broken heirloom by the woman who had been his protector from birth. The familiarity of it is disorienting.

Even after the way he has carried on, the things he has done, the people he’s killed, seeing him like this lances your heart. Try as you might, it is impossible to squash the sympathy you have always felt for Michael Langdon, the man who is both the most innocent of innocents, and the worst of villains.

You are alarmed to see Michael sink slowly to his knees. You feel his soft hair, his forehead, the wetness of his face slide down your body, leaving a warm track of tears on your chest and stomach where he has unwittingly parted the cape.

“Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me,” he begs. Michael crushes his face into your waist. “Please. Please. Please forgive me.” His arms wrap around you, clutching like a vice, as if your body were the only substantive matter in his entire unspooling universe. He sobs uncontrollably. Tears are falling onto your bare feet, rolling down to your soles. There is no part of you he would not paint with his grief if he could.

This is not behaviour befitting of the Antichrist, you think.

You swoop down and curl your arms about his trembling body.

“Shhhhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhhhhhhh, Michael,” you whisper. You gently rub his hair and neck and murmur nothings, hoping it will help.

Michael, for once in his life, does not give in to touch so easily. He is rigid. Even as he holds you tight, he recoils. You know that this reticence is born of the sincere belief that he is unworthy of the comfort of your body. Just when you are about to press him closer, to relieve him of that unspeakable thought, Michael turns away in time to vomit.

You stare in astonishment. Michael ‘no need for rules, chaos has won’ Langdon is literally sick with guilt. You whisper a cleansing spell, cleaning off Michael, and the floor where bile has landed, then pull him into an embrace.

Michael barely seems to register that he was sick a moment ago. His body shakes. “H-h-how can you e-ever forgive me? The things I did to y-you…” He takes a big, bracing breath before he allows himself to look you in the eyes. You have never seen anyone look more utterly demolished. It frightens you.

“Hush Michael,” you whisper, wiping his cheeks with your thumb. “Hush. It is ok.”

You hold on to Michael until the racking sobs die and he becomes heavy and unresisting as a boneless puppet in your arms. There is nothing left for him to do then but to groan your name repeatedly. He says it like it is the holiest of words.

You lean in to kiss him. Michael’s hair curtains you both. He moans against your lips. You well and truly pity him then, because he strains and strains, in battle with himself, shivering with the effort of holding himself back from laying waste to your lips, from sipping all the love that is offered there.

Sweet Scathach, you have missed this. You hate yourself for having missed it so much…

You have lived in pining solitude for four years, never once daring to speak out loud the one ragged hope that has kept you sane. You would have waited for Michael to your last breath. You would have waited on your knees. Even when you knew he had destroyed the world, you still felt hungry, dizzy bliss just seeing him darken a doorway.

The Prince of Hell has been made into a grovelling supplicant, and you feel fierce protectiveness over him, over this planet killer, over this ripper and eater of human hearts…

You did not listen to sense when, a few weeks before the apocalypse, Cordelia Goode, your Supreme, sat you down in the warm, feminine cloister of her study and informed you that it was ‘demeaning’ and ‘in bad taste’ to love Michael, that you should let him go, as he has you.

You never let yourself believe that Michael could be entirely rotten. A lot has transpired that should have convinced you otherwise, but you have remained as devoted as a mad monk.

At night, in your bed at Robichaux’s, you made yourself sick with imagining Michael slaking his lust with scores and combinations of Satanic followers. In your mind, Michael was naked at the centre of an undulating, Olympic pool sized orgy, fucking you out of his system, fucking you from his memory.

(Even now, it makes your stomach clench to think about it, to wonder how the boy you knew four years ago came to emanate waves of authority, experience and sexual dominance.)

You dishonored your coven in wanting him.

You dishonored yourself in loving him.

And now you dishonor the whole world…

Yet, at the first test of HIS faith, Michael gave you away. It was that easy.

Michael has spent every waking moment of the past four years in agony over your perceived disloyalty. It probably only took a moment’s convincing. Perhaps he is not the one to blame, you think, giving him the benefit of every doubt he has never deserved; an ego the size of a galaxy he may possess, but Michael’s confidence is as delicate as spun glass.

You can just imagine him: crumpling into Miriam Meade’s arms, wailing your loss, yet compliant, allowing himself to be led, thankful to be adored in a new and different way…

‘Faithless’, some would call Michael, and ‘inconstant’. But you remember where he came from. Whose soul could fester in that place, with those dead, broken people, and come out smelling like faith and roses?

“Michael,” you say. “No more, my love.”

Michael gazes at you, bewildered. His world has been cut loose from its firmament and drifts, boundless, celestial.

The soft bliss of your parted lips is so achingly close to him. Michael takes in a desperate lungful of air. The smell of you floods his olfactory senses and the memories evoked threaten to murder him. And he wants it, he wants to die because the smallest shift forward would bring his mouth upon yours again and that is not a thing that he has ever deserved.

He hurt you.

He tormented you.

He let you die.

Abandoned you.

Michael wishes that you would not look at him with those eyes. Not when he tied you to the ceiling. Not when he thought to stamp you out as easily as he had stamped out humanity, thinking, like an idiot, that he would not become mad with love the instant he saw you again.

Every time Michael thinks he has a handle on the horrible thing that has occurred, some new detail crystallizes in his memory, and shock and shame flood him anew.

Michael did not think to question Meade’s lies, because to be loved by you in the first place was so wondrous as never to be fully believed.

How could Michael have resisted believing that traitorous woman? You are brilliant and good; he is hell-blasted and polluted. What feelings could you ever have for him, besides hatred and dread? Yet, childish wretch that he was, Michael still thought to punish you for the unpardonable sin of not loving him back when he would have gladly offered you his entrails if you’d only asked. 

In leaving Michael, you took everything from him. The whole gigantic, indifferent, joy filled Earth was nothing -NOTHING- compared to what you took. How to describe the dark purpose that had slid into Michael’s veins the night you left him- the night, he corrects himself with sickening anguish- that you died?

When you speak to him again, it is an onslaught of pleasure and pain, like the bright spear of an angel into the soft bosom of a swooning nun.

“Michael, I love you.”

If he were not a coward, Michael thinks, he would pinch himself now. But how can he take that risk? He would die if the fringes of this dream were to melt and wrap him in fog. No. Best to remain perfectly still.

“I love you too,” he can’t help answering, though the fact is so obvious that giving it tongue seems almost like an insult.

You look surprised to hear it, and that makes Michael wish for death all over again.

“I would never have abandoned you, Michael,” you say, pushing the spear in deeper.

Michael does not know how to begin to address that. “I know that, now.” He looks down at your lap, where his velvety cape pools beneath your fingertips. “But I fear that I have been led down a road from which there is no coming back.”

“Michael, there might still be a way to reverse all of this. You could help me do it. I know that you regret killing all of those people.”

Michael frowns. Reverse the apocalypse? Regret killing those people? No, no, no…. The only thing he regrets is HURTING YOU. If he must undertake actions to reverse the status of reality, then so be it, but it will be for no other reason than the fact that YOU desire it.

If, on the other hand, you would consent to be his Queen of the Damned…

His Princess of the Apocalypse…

His Unholy Consort…

That would be equally wonderful...

There could never be a co-ruler more formidable than you, he thinks, no one like his lovely, bright-souled Witch. He would do anything if it meant having you by his side for the rest of his life to worship and cherish. He would let you mould what was left of the world into whatever your thrillingly clever hands desired- even if it meant reviving tedious things like ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’. 

It takes a few moments for you to realize what Michael is thinking.

You treat the Antichrist to a long, terse silence before declaring, in a voice that strains not to sound disappointed, “I see, Michael. You don’t regret it...”

Michael surges to answer, “I regret everything I have ever done that has not resulted in your happiness, y/n.”

“But how could you do it?” you ask, as though a satisfactory answer might exist. “How could you actually go through with destroying the entire world?”

“I am evil, my love,” says Michael with a slight, deprecating smile. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?” He takes your hand in his own and draws your knuckles to his lips, feathering the softest kisses there. “I was born to do it. Besides, I see it less as an act of destruction, than one of creation, rebirth, if you will.”

O, you think, is that how he is going to play it? You know that Michael is delicate right now, so you try not to sound too angry. “And you never once thought to question the destiny your father dictated for you?”

Michael’s brows furrow. “For as long as I can remember, things would just… rise out of me, on instinct. It was only after you had gone that I realized what blazing purpose I had been burdened with. To question it, at the time, would have seemed like questioning oxygen.”

“Then you deny responsibility for the evil acts you have committed,” you say, removing your hand from his. Your despair is white hot, and sparking, like rage. You try to soften your condemnation by adding, “I always knew, Michael, what you were born for. It is only that I wished better for you.”

“I take full responsibility,” says Michael, his eyes shimmering with tears. “At the same time, I do not imagine how I might have acted otherwise, without you beside me. Y/n, you are the one transfiguring force to which I would surrender all of my life, to which I bend my will completely.”

“You want me to be your conscience, Michael?”

“If that is what will make you love me.”

This is the logic of a seven-year-old. 

“You never had to try to make me love you Michael,” you say with dismay.  Pleasure sweeps over Michael at the utterance. But it is squashed when you add, “but love alone won’t bring back the people you killed.”

Michael is puzzled that a creature as magnificent as you would spare any of those frittering people a thought. But, like every one of your eccentricities, he finds it unbearably endearing. “The loss of the world has brought you great suffering,” he says, his voice clotted with sorrow.

“My feelings are irrelevant. It was wrong, Michael, so fundamentally wrong, what you did.”

Michael blinks. This is the first time in four years that he has heard ‘wrong’ and ‘Michael’ coexist inside of a sentence. It is almost as jarring as hearing your feelings referred to as ‘irrelevant’, when they are the only thing that IS.

“The world was never such a foul place as you were led to believe, Michael.”

“Perhaps,” he allows. “But after you, I saw little of the human race to recommend their preservation.”

“YOU are human, Michael, no matter what other lineage you boast of, YOU are also fully human.”

“What more damning evidence can there be of humanity’s total unworthiness than that?”

This takes you by surprise. “Michael, you are an intelligent man with the ability to inspire people. There is goodness in your soul yet. And love. And bravery.”

Michael lets out a mirthless laugh. “I knew of your presence in this bunker for eighteen months, y/n,” he informs you. “The knowledge that you were alive was the one crack of light in my entire life.” He lifts his hand and gently cradles your face, as though it were a treasure of unparalleled worth. Even this light touch has the power to score your brain with patterns of desire. “And all I wanted was to punish you for it.”

“You thought of me?” you ask, hating yourself for sounding like a mooning teenager. You attempt to temper it with passive aggression. “I thought you were too busy enjoying your apocalypse…” 

Michael winces. “I thought of little else,” he insists. “I thought of how disgusted you must be with me. I thought of how much you hated me. I thought of what a failure I was…”

You close your eyes at the words. “I tried to hate you, Michael, I did. But I couldn’t, not even when you reduced the world to ash and rubble. Not even now, when the dregs of the human race are either cannibals or billionaires and I know that there is some part of you, still, that is gratified by the state of the world, by your accomplishment. Am I wrong, Michael?”

Michael clenches his jaw. The pale gray-blue storms that form his irises glitter. You will never forget the despair with which he utters, “No. You are not.”

You wish you could hear this and not love him. But even your anger is flecked with love and want, like bone marrow infecting a bloodstream.

“I need you y/n. I need you by my side.” Michael leans forward and stays for an endless moment, with his nose pressed against you’re the side of your face just breathing against you, as though pulling a life force from the hollow of your cheek. “I need you.”

There must be a bubble of hot poison in your soul to listen to this and be tempted, even if only for a moment, to drop your crusade and become what he is asking for: Michael Langdon’s Armageddon Queen.

“Please,” he begs. “Stay by my side, y/n. You’ll have anything you want.”

Poor, sweet Michael. He does not want to do this alone. Does he even know how? He was born to his apocalyptic task, but not raised for it. He is operating without an instruction manual. What a minefield that must be. Yet, you almost feel bad taking it all away from him…

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” you whisper before pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I didn’t even get to wear a fucking crown!” says Michael forlornly. “I had one made, it was Gaultier, with 300 rose cut diamonds, 112 rubies, 100 amethysts and 85 tourmalines. The cap was wine coloured velvet, trimmed with ermine. The circlet was surmounted by six platinum arches and the arches were surmounted by a cross of St. Peter. But Ms. Meade said it was ‘overkill’.”

Your heart surges with sympathetic indignation, that bitch wouldn’t even let Michael wear his pretty crown…

“I am going to kill Ms. Meade,” says Michael with a rage all the more terrifying for the composure he has lain upon it. “I am going to get my hands dirty.”

“Always with the killing, Michael…” you sigh.

Michael turns to you, his eyes at once tender and molten, as though his need to wreak, terrible vengeance is tempered by the immediacy of your presence, and by the imperative to be inside you again.

“Michael,” you say in as steady a voice as you can manage when faced with those ravenous eyes, “there is something I think that we should talk about before you do anything.”

“What can there be to talk about? Ms. Meade,” it is an effort for him to finish the sentence without combusting with rage, “t-took a paper weight to your s-skull...”

“I know Michael, but please listen.”

For a glimmer of a moment- far shorter than prudence would dictate- you wonder if you can trust Michael with what you are about to say.

You take a fortifying breath. “Have you ever heard of the spell, ‘Tempus Infinituum’?”

Michael listens to you talk. There is a lot, he shames to realize, that he never bothered to learn about magic. As the heir of hell, he fancied himself superior to those of light sourced power. He had never imagined that any witch, with her stilted, numinous methods, all those trinkets and potions, could become the fire that consumes the Antichrist. 

Michael thinks bitterly of how limited he has been made by your absence. He has not had you to tell him stories and enflame his mind with art. Without you, his tastes have run toward the banal. Even his evil, he thinks, is a tad quotidian (church basement potlucks. Silicon Valley. Billionaires and nuclear bombs. How utterly lacking in poetry…).

Perhaps, in a perfect world, Michael might have shuffled off to that Warlock School Meade talked about that one time. For all that they burrowed underground like badgers, those men would have at least, maybe, heard about the miraculous spell that could contaminate the river of time. Had his imagination not been so orphaned, Michael could have used it for all sorts of devious things...

You tell Michael that you have a friend named Mallory- that infernal name again! - who can travel through time. Michael’s cloud of envy upon hearing this is pierced only by the heartbroken look in your eyes when you ask: “Is she dead, Michael? Did you kill Mallory along with the other witches?”

Michael thinks about that Witch he has imprisoned in hell, the one who did not seem at all alarmed by the succession of misfortunes that befell her and her coven. She had, in fact, appeared almost happy to be there. There was something in the way Mallory had looked at him, as though she presumed to know the Antichrist, as though they were something other than adversaries, and had been for years…

Only Michael had never seen her before.

“No,” says Michael quietly. “She is not dead. I tried,” he admits, “but I was not able to kill her.”

“Not able?” You know that this can’t be for sentimental reasons.

“Your little friend seemed to be covered in some kind of protective spell,” said Michael, sounding mildly irritated. “I can crush witches in my sleep. But I was not able to harm her in any way. The best I could do was contain the foremost source of her magic, dampen all of her other powers, and effectively take her prisoner.”

“My goodness, Michael, where is she?”

Michael looks down, abashed. “Hell.”

“You trapped my friend in hell?”

“It is perfectly safe there,” he says sheepishly. “The demons practically rolled out the red carpet when she arrived…”

“Michael, we must go to her.”

Michael stiffens and turns his face from you. Wet lashes fan his lovely cheek in profile. The candlelight plays a luminous game with his hair. He looks even more beautiful and vulnerable now than he did on the night you met, when uninvited, unasked for, ill-considering love took possession of your being.

“You wish to erase me from time…”

You seize Michael’s face gently between your palms and force him to meet your eyes. “Never,” you say.

 Michael’s shoulders collapse with relief. Your body is suffused with such a burst of affection for him that you whimper as you draw him to your chest. “Michael, I would never allow that.”

“I could stop you if I wanted to,” he informs you without a hint of vanity. “I could stop both of you. Mallory could rot in hell for eternity, and I could crush your windpipe. But if you wanted me erased, what would be the point of continuing to live?”

You embrace Michael, thinking that you never thought a threat to your windpipe could sound so romantic.

“Hush, Michael.”

“Don’t tell me that it hasn’t crossed your mind…”

“It didn’t have to,” you say, “it was the first thing Mallory talked about when she told me about you.”

You tell Michael about the way all of this started four years ago, when Mallory had told you that you had negated the coven’s plans to murder Michael, in favor of a more nurturing approach.

“And I failed you!” cries Michael. “You took me on the most wonderful road trip! And all I did was keep hurting people!”

You laugh. “The road trip wasn’t the best idea,” you say. “I should have been more careful. I just thought, if we kept moving around, the ‘signs’ of your destiny wouldn’t manifest, I don’t know what I was thinking… I was too goddamn in love with you to think, I suppose.”

You are surprised by the stark laughter you hear falling from your own lips. Michael is smiling at you. You see your own desire mirrored, and think, with a bolt of adrenaline, that there are no secrets between the two of you now. And just like that, the anguish you were feeling naught but a moment ago mutates into something entirely different.

Michael’s mouth crashes hard against yours.

It is a breath stealing kiss, demanding and full of pent up relief. There is no room for negotiation as Michael gathers you tight in his arms. Somebody bites. You aren’t sure who, or whose blood it is you taste.

Michael tears his cape from your body, too needy and desperate for anything other than grappling urgency. He shrugs off his own robe and his beautiful cock is hot and hard against your stomach. You wrap your fingers around it, pulling toward you, realizing, in passing, that you won’t be making it to the bed, that the Antichrist intends to take you right here on the floor. Michael lets out a harsh, satisfied moan as his hand finds you. The slick folds of your pussy purse hungrily around his fingers. You are wet and greedy for him, as always.

Even at the height of his own desire, Michael coaxes your body to his will, building and building and building your pleasure until you shatter around his fingers and scream so loudly you are certain that all of Outpost 3 knows what Mr. Langdon is up to.

Michael stares in focused bliss as the aftershocks roll over you. He parts your labia with his thumbs and hums in satisfaction to hear you keen softly. “P-please, Michael,” you say, splaying your thighs further apart.

“How sweetly you beg,” he says, even as his own control is being blasted to pieces.

In answer to this, you lay your hand on his smooth, sweaty chest and push him gently down to his back.

It is with both total ownership and breathless submission that he drives his cock upward into your sweet, quivering flesh.

You ride Michael, and he gazes up at you with astonished adoration, stroking your clit and shouting your name.

It is the most sublime ecstasy that Michael has ever experienced. It is pleasure that penetrates like droplets of acid rain, melting his flesh, melting his will, seeming to wash even the darkness off of him, until there is only light- not his but yours, radiant enough for the both of you. He is crying again, but what does that matter? He moves inside you, lost in feeling, wondering what earthly thing he has done to merit this joy, this female magic, this forgiveness that overwhelms him…

When you climax, Michael feels it, your body, the inside of it, all down his spine and on his cock, where your pussy clamps down, milking him for all that he’s worth.

“Fuck,” he groans. And you smile like the innocent succubus that you are, not knowing that you take EVERYTHING from him, pulling and pulling and pulling away all of his pride and all of his pain. Michael cries your name over and over as he shudders and fills the heavenly portal of your cunt with his hellish seed.

Afterwards, he covers every inch of your body with kisses and carries you to the bed.

For a long time, you lie entwined in one another, stupefied by the beauty and power of the intimate acts that have unfolded in this room, in this bunker, beneath the earth.

You wonder about the evil in Michael, the evil that undeniably remains. All of this time you have thought of it as a sentient, squirming parasite living inside of his soul. But now you think it is a part of him, a part of the whole, and that, perhaps, you should love this part, this broken, world-destroying, slime trailing part of Michael, as equally as you love all the rest.

Then, as if to pierce the mesmerized peace, Michael speaks. “We must go to hell,” he says. “I think I understand now, what is meant to happen.”

You raise yourself to look at Michael. He appears to be lost in some epiphany.

“Enlighten me, Michael,” you say.

Michael is silent for a beat, uncertain.

“Out with it,” you say, stroking his lovely hair. 

“How much do you know about your friend Mallory’s background, her parentage?”

You think for a moment.

It is actually rather amazing how little you know…

Mallory has never spoken to you about her parents. You do not even know if she has family with whom she is in contact. It would be rude to ask, you have always thought. She never brought it up, and you heard enough sad stories from other girls at Robichaux’s to think twice about asking. It was almost like a rite of passage: sitting around and sniffing out one another’s comparative luck out there in the wider world. Your peers spoke of panicked parents, ruined houses, and lovers they had unwittingly set on fire. Many had come to Robichaux’s as outcasts eager to make sense of themselves within the covenant of witches.

“Michael, why do you ask?”

………….

 

The walls of Satan’s house are slick and red, like killing in the rain. The estate is all pillars, alcoves and gardens of dead, glinting geodes. Its scale, like the scale of everything in Hell, conspires to make the living world a Lilliput: tiny, inconsequential, absurd. It reminds Mallory of her childhood. Her own father once said that the earth exists merely to feed the underworld, like a tiny stream that must feed the brackish, fathomless waters of an estuary.

Being here, she is tempted to believe it.

Mallory’s rooms are comfortable. On the walls there are woven tapestries with ebbing patterns of burgundy, poppy red and sun orange. Scores of lamps droop from the immense darkness above and cast a bath of gold over the grim faces of the demons who keep her company.

There is a rather romantic colonnaded balcony where Mallory can step out to survey the swamps, mountains, and monuments of the damned. A glittering necropolis rises, out of a valley of ash and igneous rock. The sky above is black, and the clouds that scuttle across it, blacker still, like bursts of cuttlefish ink.

Her companions, the demons, are attentive to her needs. Heedless of the horrors Michael has in store for them, they serve her with the single-minded faithfulness of automatons. There is cruelty in that, Mallory supposes. But here, every molecule is cruel. 

There are no hours in hell, so the devil knows how long Mallory waits. She and her demons play chess, checkers, and ‘Go Fish’. She tries to make small talk, then attempts to pry out gossip about the manifold personages who reside here (is Lord Byron still the resident hunk of Tartarus? Is Dido still in the Mourning Fields, or has that bitch moved on?). Mallory can hardly blame the demons for thinking grunting and monosyllables to be soul of wit. She doubts they have had much conversation over the millennia, other than being on the receiving end of abject pleading for mercies that can never be granted.   

By the time Ryan Reynolds shows up at her door looking like hell’s version of a kissogram, Mallory is so bored she is almost tempted to take him up on his voluptuous offer... But then she remembers her pride. Blandly handsome movie star he may be, but he is as indentured as any other skulking thing around here- best not forget that.

Contrary to popular opinion, the ‘master’ of the house does not stalk the corridors. No one has actually seen his corporeal body- that is, if he has ever bothered taking one. If Mallory has seen Satan, it has been in the evil acts of humanity. And, perhaps, in Michael Langdon.

Michael… whose soul is so foul and dark that it appears forged out of negative space.

What, then, does that make her?

If the truth of Mallory’s nature were known to the world, there would not be a physicist, theologian, witch, philosopher or extra terrestrial alive who would not wish to probe her for answers…

Sometimes, the weight of her secret is like lead. Other times, it is a clever joke that only she is privy to.

This is Mallory’s eleventh trip back into the past. Her mission is achingly close to completion this time, she can feel it. All the pieces have fallen into place. For once, none of parties involved have fucked up. Too badly.

O, there have been crushing disappointments before, and Mallory has had to fight hard not to give each and every one of them all the weight of permanent reality. There was the time the Satanists caught up to you in Monterey and dumped you into the ocean and there was no reanimating what became of your corpse; or the time when you and Michael didn’t even meet, except to see one another for a few moments just before the bullets rained on the students of Robichaux’s.

But the worst was the time when Mallory had put herself under an identity spell out of fear that the witch-hound Antichrist would sniff her out like a sausage in a suitcase if she had her own powers and identity. Then, not knowing who she really was, Mallory had allowed herself to be convinced by a well-intentioned Cordelia to go under ANOTHER identity spell…

A Russian doll of a sleeper agent… What a clusterfuck!

That was the only time Mallory had actually succeeded in ‘stopping’ Michael, namely by repeatedly squashing one of his earliest Pokémon forms with a car.

This, Mallory knows, she will have to reckon with until the end of her days. (If there is to be an ‘end of her days’, that is. No one is quite sure).

Of course, the result of Michael’s death was nothing at all like she had intended… Thank god the trusty universe had gone ahead and tapped that reset button it always does whenever Mallory fails. It sure beats the alternative, namely blowing Mallory into oblivion.

Paradoxes are not a thing to be trifled with, or rather: one has to be certain that one is trifling with the RIGHT paradoxes. That’s the thing that Mallory is learning: enacting the will of the cosmos consists of a lot more than simply of following one’s gut, even for a being like her, who has been preparing for this mission since before she was even born.

It beggars even Mallory’s own imagination at times… At the time of her conception, her fate was already sealed; everything that she is living through now has effectively happened already.

Such is the illogic of hell! Here, no one bothers with temporal mechanics. Nothing is elegant or ordered or mathematically sound. Perhaps that is what chaos and evil really are: a refusal to play by the ‘rules’ that physics describes.       

In hell, there are bone white desserts so endless and monotonous that they inspire madness in all who venture foot. There are boiling, fetid lakes that go on FOREVER.

Where is the sense, where is the geometry, in any of that?

The underworld is so antithetical to reason that Michael Langdon is what happened when it chose to express itself: a man whose creation is a function of destruction, who needs to be goaded into his hellish work by love, or the perceived denial of it.

Mallory’s father once attempted to describe the complicated mess that is his head. From what Mallory gathered, there is an ocean of love, devotion and tenderness that co-exists, mostly peacefully, with a small, pebbled shore of unfathomable evil. It should not work. But it does.

She shouldn’t ‘work’ either, but she does: Mallory, the only living being ever to be born in the underworld, the woman for whom the threads of time bifurcate and blossom out into infinitudes, each one breathable and real.

The daughter who effectively set up her own parents.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Heavy is the head that wears the crown' is, of course, from Henry the Fourth, Part 2 by William Shakespeare 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for continuing to read my fic!! You cannot imagine how wonderful it feels, and how deeply grateful I am for your readership, and sweet comments.  
> THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!  
> Hope the latest chapter was slightly worth the wait and not a total bust!!!


	6. Chapter 6

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”  
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Contrary to what you have been led to believe, Hell is a place of unspeakable splendor- horror, yes, how could it be otherwise?- but, above all, splendor.

To begin with, there are five main rivers.

Acheron is the river of sorrow. It runs silver, twisting, unending. It tastes of salt.

Phlegethon is the river of fire. It is what would appear on earth if flames could melt into water and cut land in one red hot, sinuous vein. 

Lethe, the river of oblivion, is milky, and, in places, nearly stagnant, as though it has forgotten to flow, forgotten what a river is. But there is always momentum, a push toward the next, an almost imperceptible lapping at the empty, white band of its shore. 

Cocytus is the river of lamentation. Its rapid, roiling waters are deafening if you stand near the rim. The striking thing about this river is that there are patches in between the foam that are completely frozen. If one were to look closely at these frozen parts, one might see the tops of human scalps protruding from the ice like so many scattered shipwrecks.  

Styx is the river of hate. It reeks of dead flesh. Its waters are thick as goo, black and bubbling. Most people foolish enough to attempt to traverse the surface, find their vessels melting beneath their feet like sugar in hot tar.

But not Michael’s boat.

Michael’s boat glides over the surface with ease. He is the son of Satan, and nothing here, not even the creatures with gleaming, animal teeth whose sole purpose of existence is torment, would dream of harming him.

You had rather hoped, truth be told, to never have to set a toe here. Unlike scores of your peers, you have never aspired to become the Supreme. You neither wanted nor entertained a go at ‘Descensum’. Visiting Hell always sounded like a foolish thing to do, if you were honest, a hubris of Promethean proportions.

You had ideas about this place. A red world full of molten matter is what you half expected, and unfortunate souls folded like nougat between the Earth’s crust and mantle. Zoe and Queenie told you a little about their personal hells. You wonder where these nightmare suites are located. You don’t understand how any of it functions, really. Even when magic is a habit of one’s life, folklore and fact can be difficult to untangle. Would Michael let them all go if you asked nicely? Is it in his power?

A mountainous region stretches beyond the river. The peaks, looming higher than any that exist on earth, are made of geodes whose refracting surfaces explode with every imaginable colour. It is as though a giantess has spilled the contents of her jewellery box over the valley, and choked everything that once was alive with prismatic gems and crystals. The velvet night that caps them, is sprayed with stars. That is how big Hell is: it has stars of its own.

The underworld is inexplicable. It cannot be charted. It cannot be cracked or catalogued by geographers or astronauts. It is a universe in which humanity will ever be the subservient species to something dark and huge and unwilling to be known. Hell is not a fiery cavern in which the decadent and imperfect fritter away eternity. It has galaxies and oceans and orbs of its own. There are neighborhoods, and villas that scatter the foothills like flecks of gold. The largest and most splendid, instinct whispers, will be your destination. 

You take in great lungfuls of air. It is warm and heavy with the aroma of woodsmoke and beeswax. How odd. You like the way Hell smells. Even though your heart gallops, and your body is suffused with adrenaline just from breathing here. And if you were not holding Michael’s hand so tightly, you would be lost to panic.

Splashed with starlight, the Antichrist is looking stern and beautiful on the deck of the barge. A cape flows down his back like black, rippling water. Light wind disturbs the honey perfection of his hair. Michael issues commandments to the boatman. He is using his big boy voice, you realize with a smile, and that hellish manner that is accustomed to blind obedience. The boatman is a demon. His white face is unsettling because one would remember it as being entirely featureless. It can alter depending on what walk on roles he is assigned in various personal hells. The demon regards Michael with a mixture of awe and fear. He is bound, on a molecular level, to serve the devil’s son. But OF COURSE, Michael still feels the need to put on airs… Even here, he is exhibiting that swaggering arrogance that only you seem to recognize as a painful need to be loved.   

All around, things are being eaten, broken down, gutted and destroyed. It is like whatever the opposite of a big bang is, as if the thought ‘life’ would evaporate before it was allowed to become a puff of sound on your lips.

The trouble is that this land, with its suffering souls and its blinged out mountains, rivers of insanity, perma-black sky and pinpricks of stars, suits Michael. He has never more resembled a King. Your mind struggles to graft Hell Michael onto the Michael that is yours.

Is this how Josephine Bonaparte felt? Or Eva Braun?

Whoa.

DON’T GO THERE, you tell yourself. The apocalypse can still be... You struggle with the verbiage. ‘Fixed’? ‘Averted’? ‘Reversed’ ‘Undone’?

‘He’s going to be my baby daddy,’ you think with helpless, stupid glee.

You’re going to have Michael’s kid.

That kid that is going to grow up to be Mallory.

When Michael shared his theory with, you nearly passed out. Your comprehension of the world, of yourself, of time, of life bucked beneath you like a wild beast.

You are Mallory’s mother.

Michael is Mallory’s father.

It still doesn’t quite compute.

You have known Mallory for more than five years. She has been a friend, a confidante, a guide…

In retrospect, it WAS Mallory, who in her own enigmatic way, had seemed to push you toward Michael in the first place.

Michael looks at you and favours you with one of those smiles that turns your chest to pudding. “You are very brave to be here, y/n,” he says. “My brave, brilliant, beautiful witch.”

His praise is a drug. It bathes you in hellish power. You squirm beneath the terrible, addictive, blazing scrutiny. Surrendering to Michael makes you feel high, buoyant, as though a warm air current were lifting you. You wish it were otherwise. Some objectivity would be good right about now. What would your coven say if they saw you looking this way at the man who destroyed the world?

“It is a little overwhelming to be… in hell,” you admit. “But I trust you.”

Michael’s eyes shimmer like water over jade. You cannot decide what is worse: the suspicion that steals over them for the briefest moment, or the stunned gratitude when he realizes you mean it.

He looks away, abashed. “There isn’t a thing I have done to deserve your trust, y/n,” he says in a ragged whisper. “Not one.”

You realize, in that moment- and not without a heart squeeze of guilt- that it is you that is the incursion, the foreign object, the catastrophe in Michael’s life. If it were not for you, Satan’s son would regard himself as the most perfect being in existence. Because of you, he looks within and sees an index of imperfections. You have taken Michael’s dreams away. You have drained every drop of sweetness he derived from the death of the world. You have brutalized him with goodness. Your love has made hell’s prodigal son frailer and more vulnerable than a leaf.

“That is not true, Michael.”

Michael says nothing, only stares at your hand. The hot pads of his fingers trace your wrist and, if you were to close your eyes, you would swear they were unzipping your skin. Michael has remained quiet for most of the boat journey. You cannot imagine what must be happening in his mind. You appreciate that, where Mallory is concerned, your Baby daddy is in a rather more challenging position than you. You have been Mallory’s good friend for years. Michael has, to put it bluntly, been an asshole. He murdered Mallory’s coven in front of her, then tried to kill her, then imprisoned her, then nuked the planet, then gloated about it. All in all, not exactly father of the year material.

You are heartened only in knowing that, surely, this is not Mallory’s first impression of Michael. He will have many years to make it right.

“It is going to be ok, Michael,” you tell him gently. “Mallory’s very existence confirms that- well, it confirms SOMETHING, something good.”

Michael looks unconvinced. “Fate is mutable. It confirms nothing- only that I have imprisoned my own child in hell, then proceeded to ravage her mother…”

“O Michael, I hardly think-” A blush creeps across your cheeks. You remember what it felt like to have your arms bound by silken ties fixed to Michael’s ceiling. You remember the heartbeat in her cunt, the rush of fear, the shameful arousal. You remember how helplessly you had gasped and begged for Michael’s possession, hating him, hating yourself more. “Well, truth be told, I rather enjoyed being ‘ravaged’ by you,” you admit in the smallest of voices. “Maybe you can do it again some time,” you suggest shyly, “the way you did it yesterday…”

A sliver of palest turquoise circling round black, gigantic pupils is what you see when your eyes find Michael’s. He swallows thickly. For a moment, his haunted expression is replaced by one of pure want. Then, it seems to take every ounce of strength he has just to shutter it.

Michael looks down. He can’t even bring himself to smile over how fucking horny you make him, over how badly he’d like to lay you down on some pillows and tongue you right here on this barge, on this hateful river, within full view of his hellish subjects.  

Once upon a time, he’d have done it. Once upon a time, innocence striding so boldly into the jaws of depravity would have amused Michael to no end. He has nursed countless fantasies over the years, of claiming you after the apocalypse, and bringing you to hell as his trussed-up prize, of denying you clothing and the freedom to ever leave his side. Maybe a leash was involved. Maybe a diamond collar. Maybe he spanked you for your insolence. Maybe he fucked you ruthlessly, punishingly, over and over. In most these fantasies, Michael denied you orgasm. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Denied himself, more like. If he ever imagined you coming around his cock or onto his ravening tongue, he would cry.

Once upon a time, Michael had dreamed of making you hell’s most debauched inmate. Now, he desperately wishes to spare you the horror of this place. You will hate him, he fears, once you have toured Hell, once you have seen the creature that you think you love in its native habitat. The thought of losing you again deranges Michael. How could he bear it, the loss, the roaring emptiness?

Michael can barely stand to meet your eyes. He has done you so much wrong. Yet you look at him with a gaze as soft and purifying as a blanketing snowfall. With each forward pulse of the river, he is stabbed by new barbs of shame. No matter how pretty he makes it, there is no hiding where he has brought you.

Hell.

You are in Hell.

Because of him.

There are rooms here- entire cities for that matter- designed specifically for torture, where screams of agony are wrung out of condemned souls like juice and pulp from an orange. What will you think of that?

Horror + Repetition: that’s the patented recipe. Time looping is damned effective. The punishments prescribed in Hell are, by virtue of their infinite, repetitive nature, more horrible than the crimes that warrant them. Because that is rather the point of it all, isn’t it?

In the years since your separation, Michael has barely visited the underworld. He has told himself over and over that personal hells are boring, that there is nothing there to provide inspiration for a sadist as consummate as him, that human beings, ‘don’t even suffer creatively’.

In truth, Michael has lived in his own torture box for four years. Michael Langdon is everything like normal, in this regard. Heartbreak is woefully unoriginal. Only Michael had had to take it a step further. He had had to go ahead and get you killed.

You deserve, so much more, Michael knows, than the ugly, shrivelled remains of his humanity. You deserve so much more than to be sailing down a bubbling river in the underworld with the man who allowed his followers to murder you.

Rage claws at his heart. Michael wishes he had not allowed you to convince him to delay dealing with Miriam Meade until after all this world annihilation business is handled.

Michael imagines scooping the heart out of Meade’s chest.

He imagines peeling Anton LeVay.

It brings a modicum of satisfaction to dream of their punishments, and to know that the reality will be o so much more juicy and drawn out.

But Michael still knows that it is HE who is to blame for what happened to you.   

The words ‘pathetic’ and ‘coward’ have followed him like spectre for as long as he can remember. They are his true names. ‘Pathetic Coward’ suits him so much better than ‘Michael Langdon’. At least the people who sell their souls to his father do it BY CHOICE.  Even Michael’s towering evil is nothing more than an inherited condition, like asthma, blonde hair, weak ankles, or a loving mother.

What difference is there, he wonders, between the act of his conception and the forging of a particularly deadly sword? Probably that more love goes into the sword…

Michael had wanted to recreate the perfect love you had squandered on him. That was the problem. But all of those fawning, hungry-eyed Satanists had had their own agendas. If they had ever been given a sign that their golden boy wasn’t going to be able to fulfil his fated purpose, the very people who had trampled over each other to kiss the wine-coloured hem of his robe, would have discarded Michael like a broken condom. He has always known that. He simply trained himself to think that he didn’t care.

Ever since that fateful evening, four years ago, when three hooded Satanists hailed him as their Lord, Michael has been indulging in the delusion that he is King of the Earth. In reality, his entire life has been naught but bondage.

Bondage to his Father. Bondage to the Langdons. Bondage to his destiny. Bondage to satanic puppeteers.  

Bondage to you, Michael thinks, is the only kind that has ever felt like salvation.

You: his lovely, perfect Witch, who ruin and heal in the same breath. Even when Michael’s soul slips and slides helplessly toward evil, you take that evil apart and recognize it for the pitiful thing that it is.

Michael examines the hand that you have placed so imprudently in his. He gently moves his finger against the blue veins running beneath the skin at your wrist. It enrages the Prince of Hell that his entire life should hinge upon the continued function of this instrument of blood and flesh that he could crush and snap with no effort. Anguish and arousal steal over him. And shame. Puny human you may be, but you are god to him. You are life.

“Michael,” you say softly. “What has you looking like that?”

You step closer and he nearly shrinks. For his arrogance, cowardice and worthlessness, Michael is rewarded with a deep, sweetly besieging kiss. He can’t help kissing back hungrily. Slanting his head against yours, he takes the reigns, teases your mouth open to him, plundering, taking.

You feel Michael’s arms snake proprietarily around your waist. One travels down to your bottom and squeezes. He sucks your tongue into his mouth with the same greed as he would your clit. You hear yourself moan.

At that precise moment, a long barge full of tired, over-it looking people floats into view beside yours. A handsomely terrifying man with dreadlocks and white, caked paint around his red eyes lets out a demonic laugh. You make note: when demons laugh, it sounds distorted, and multiplied.

Michael narrows his eyes. “Legba,” he says in acknowledgement.

You’ve heard of Papa Legba before. You’re pretty sure that Nan, a witch Queenie and Zoe knew before you came to Robichaux’s, is, like, dating him now. Legba steers the ship closer, until you are near enough to conduct a conversation.

“I thought I felt love in the air tonight,” teases Legba in his rich, Creole accented voice.

You attempt to disengage yourself from Michael, but he holds you plastered against the line of his body, one hand firmly gripping your right butt cheek. The barge that Legba captains is maxed out in occupancy. People are starting to get up from make shift deck chairs and craning their necks get a look at you, like whale watchers who have just been alerted to some humpbacks humping away in their midst. Heat pools in your cheeks. You are now officially Michael Langdon’s strumpet.

“Busy night for you?” inquires Michael, raising his head and flaring his nostrils imperiously. He ignores the long-legged man’s insinuating stare.

 “So many souls since the apocalypse,” says Legba, shaking his head and gesturing at the overabundance of humanity on his boat. He lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Your Dark Majesty has royally fucked me. Nan and I were planning a vacation to Tartarus before your bombs. Now, I don’t even get Saturdays… And they are always complaining about the accommodations…”

You blink. Those poor people on the barge. Many of them look young. Some are your age. Cut down in their prime. As if he can sense your disapproving thoughts, Michael palms your ass so hard that you almost cry out.

Legba narrows his crimson eyes. “What brings you and your Amoureux to the Underworld, My Dark Lord?” he asks. “I thought your attention was all wrapped up in affairs concerning the living?”

“That’s classified,” says Michael with a theatrical flourish of his hand. “Now, be on your way, Legba, there’s-”- Michael doesn’t say ‘torture’- “WORK to be done and those people aren’t going to transport themselves.”

“Quite so,” says Legba, nodding his respect. With that, the barge full of people quickens its pace and sails away.

You can feel tension tighten the chords of muscle beneath Michael’s cape.

“Where are they all going, Michael?” you ask, gently pressing his chest until you are extricated from the vice like hold.

Michael stiffens perceptibly.

“I KNOW this is Hell, I am not an idiot. I suppose I just wonder….” You wish you could articulate it without sounding so naïve. “I just wonder how much of what goes on here is, um…”

“You wonder how much what goes on here is oriented toward human notions of ‘justice’?” provides Michael in a brittle tone.

“I guess, yes. I mean, eternal damnation is sort of, I dunno, TERRIFYING.”

 Michael regards you in the same unsettling way he regarded his human experiments in the bunker, and you wish he would stop. He tilts his head to one side. “It is, isn’t it?” he says. His voice is detached. But when you reach for his hand, a relieved slice of light returns to his eyes.

“Chaos reigns here,” he says. “But there are laws that hold the realms in equilibrium,” Michael is nervous, you realize. He does not want you to see him differently because he is the heir of Hell. “Hell and Heaven are comforting in their extremity. You know exactly where you stand. It is life on Earth that is the danger, the free radical if you will. Because life is the little corridor between two howling eternities. Life gives you the chance to fuck everything up. A baby is born morally rudderless, if it were to die, it would go to the good place automatically. But if it is given enough time to grow up, to come of age, to fall into sin, to rape or murder someone, then it goes to the bad place. Forever.

“Think about it, y/n: if souls are immortal, then is it not unfair to make their eternal fate hinge upon actions performed within one brief, human lifetime? And what about circumstances? What about crimes motivated by illness or personal trauma? Too bad. It all amounts to the same perpetual torture in the end.”

“Michael, this is a lot to take in…”

By his logic, Michael did everyone a favor by cutting as many young lives short in the apocalypse. You wonder how many people you know are here this very moment.

You think of all of the Witches who have engaged in the lunacy of the Seven Wonders Test… How many have ended up here as property of hell? For eternity. ETERNITY. Because they failed a test. A dumb test rooted in an arcane tradition designed to uphold what is essentially a dictatorship.

“Surely not everyone deserves… I mean, there are people here who are not fundamentally evil, who have made horrible mistakes that they regret...”

“It is difficult for one with your… sensibilities to understand. You hate it.” Michael does not mean for that to come out quite so sharp, but he cannot help it. The rising bitterness refuses to be swallowed. “Of course, you hate it,” he grinds out. “You would crawl out of your skin rather than spend another moment here with me in my Kingdom- if it could be helped. You are probably nauseated just standing here.” His tone is accusatory. A dark voice within him promises that insult and rage will make him feel better. Michael feels the sting of tears threaten and forces himself to find a point on the horizon. He stares at the sparkling gem mountains as a delicate ribbon of shame winds its way around his person. What a legacy for his child, he thinks. What a thing to burden his lover with! 

“If you had not come here with me,” he says harshly, “I might still be able to imagine- to at least IMAGINE- existing without you. Now you’ve ruined even that.”

“O, Michael…”

“I am ruined,” he says, in a voice of despair. “I am unfit for anyone. Unfit for anything.”

You take Michael’s bigger body in your arms and crush him to you. Breath abandons him for a few moments.

“Michael, you are fit for me. I love you.”

“You shouldn’t have done it, little Witch,” he whispers. “You should not have tried to love me into submission. You have only cursed yourself.”

There are tears on your face, his and yours mingling together.

“Michael, hush.”

“What is Mallory going to say when her Father arrives with the blood of the entire world under his fingernails?”

“Michael, Mallory is running circles around us. She has known who we are for years.”

“Cordelia Goode, your precious Supreme, I bisected her in front of Mallory, as though she were a fucking fish.”

You can’t help but wince at that.

“And you know what, y/n? I really fucking enjoyed it.”

“Calm down, Michael. I am sure that our daughter has seen you do even worse. This is her eleventh loop back in time, after all. And she remembers all of her trips. She is wise, Michael, and probably much, much older than she looks. You have had an entire lifetime to prime her for this. Future You probably warned her about what a hot mess you are right now. She’s Teflon, our girl.”

Michael smiles at that, and you can’t help but beam at him triumphantly. “I am right. I know I am. Besides, if she takes after you, she’s probably not the sort to cringe at a bloodbath- especially one that is reversable.”

Michael stares a you like a marvel. “If she takes after me…” He swallows. “SHE HAD BETTER NOT.”

“Actually, a lot of things about Mallory make sense now, in light of her being your spawn. She is so loyal, Michael. Even to the point of being a little ruthless… I mean, for this mission, she would have to be, right? O Michael, you haven’t spent so much time with her, you can’t imagine how clever she is… And her magic is soooooo beautiful. She is your daughter through and through.”

Michael stares at you in disbelief. “My magic is Satanic.”

Four years ago, when you and Michael briefly boarded together at Robichaux’s, then road tripped across the US, you had had the frequent pleasure of practicing your craft together.

Nature was eager to bend to the will of Michael’s unashamed magic. His movements were as precise and elegant as those of a world class conductor. Boyish and ardent, he had seemed to glow when he cast spells. You were mesmerized by the joy and arrogance that rose from your lover like steam.

It was not simply that Michael was good- well, the BEST- at magic. It was the love. It was the joy. With such rapturous innocence did Michael adore the dark gift that flowed from him... That was a moment in time, a fragile, teenaged bliss. You wonder if it is gone forever. 

Once, the two of you had sat on the hood of a car in the middle of Californian August, and Michael had made it snow. A delicate sphere of enchantment enclosed you both, like a fairy tale scene inside of a snow globe. You held hands and gazed up at the sparkling, falling snowflakes in wonder.

As if you had needed snow to make you deaf to all the world that stretched beyond the scope of what was between you and Michael, beyond your young, foolish, passionate love...

“It may be Satanic,” you say, “but your magic is the most beautiful I have ever seen. Remember that time you made it snow in Chico?”

You can feel the intensity of Michael’s gaze like heat on your face. It was a stupid question. Of course, he remembers.

“It felt like you and I were the only two people alive,” he says in a voice thick with emotion. He realizes, too late, that this is a not so sensitive thing to say, under the circumstances. 

“It was one of the most perfect moments of my life,” you confess. “I was overwhelmed by love. It was like knowing you had made the world burst out of a cocoon. Suddenly, there were colours and details and wonders all around me that I had never seen or even imagined before. I was awake. I could see, I could taste the snow…”  You sigh, remembering the beautiful act of magic, and the flurry of passion that had followed it. The memory is enough to keep your heart warm until the day you die (for good). “I sat on that car with you that night and knew you were not a warlock, Michael. I knew you were the Antichrist. Cordelia had told me that the fountain of your magic was evil. It struck me as being as silly to ascribe moral terms to magic as to a wild animal, or an elemental force of nature. All I knew was that I loved it when I felt your beautiful magic flowing all over me. It IS beautiful Michael, as you are, inside of your soul and right down to the tips of your fingers.” You accentuate your words by laying a slow kiss on each one of said fingers.

Michael trembles. “But I have brought you to hell, y/n. And it isn’t just figurative this time…”

“When will you learn, you silly boy? Any place where you are is my home.” 

Michael stares at you with eyes of wildfire.

There is a debate raging on inside of him. If Michael accepts this priceless gift, he is condoning the absurdity of its being offered up in the first place. Your love for him is a defilement of the natural order, he knows, but it penetrates deep and makes him whole and Michael WANTS it. How can he help it?

The Antichrist lets out a tortured groan. “You say that to me, and then you forbid me from taking you right here on this barge. Maybe you are a demon. Maybe you’re better suited to this place than I am.”

You giggle as Michael pulls you into his arms.

“I want all of hell to hear you tonight, my sweet Succubus,” he whispers into your ear.

You slap his chest playfully. 

The white-faced boatman gives you both a withering look. He is so over this

………………………………………………………………………………

 

Mallory has decided to paint her toe nails satanic red. She curls and wiggles her feet in a vain attempt to make the enterprise dry faster.

“Are we going with a mattifying or glossy topcoat, Your Highness?” asks Phobos, her trusty Demon valet. He offers up two vials with tiny clawfoot feet.

“Do you think shine would be overkill?” 

Phobos wrinkles his pasty brow. “To my mind, less is more, Your Highness.”

“But that only makes more that much MORE,” counters Mallory.

“Your Father always goes for the lacquered look,” says Phobos with a vague look of distaste. He unscews the top of the matte vial, as though that has decided it.

“Of course he does,” says the flame coloured witch who Mallory knows to be the very soul of style. “I am surprised there isn’t a French Manicure involved…” She and the demon exchange low chuckles. “Or sparkles.”

“Count Chokula called,” says Phobos, “he wants his look back.”

Another exchange of chuckles.

“I was having dinner with Elsa Schiaparelli the other night,” says Mallory’s red-haired guest, bringing a froth topped Macchiato to her lips. “We both agree that it is just too dreadful. It’s like a dog ate a black velvet painting and threw up. Whenever he shows up, my eyes wish they could excuse themselves. I am sorry, Mallory dear, I know he’s your Father, but he dresses like a maroon nightmare and there doesn’t seem to be any hope for it.” 

“The apocalypse can’t buy you class,” says Phobos, delicately painting Mallory’s toenail.

“Or taste.”

“You two are horrible…” says Mallory with a laugh. 

The arrival of Myrtle Snow in this particular circle of Hell has been a godsend- if one doesn’t mind putting it blasphemously. All day, she has been regaling Mallory and Phobos with stories about Cordelia’s mom and Halston and Princess Radzivill and Egon Von Furstenberg. They are LIVING for it.

Death becomes Myrtle. Her triumphant, carrot coloured hair is laying higher than ever. She wears a bubble gum pink gown that flows from a discreet ruffle at the top of her neck to the ground. Evening gloves are bunched up at her elbows. Their particular lapis lazuli colour, she informs Mallory, is actually the exact shade of blue that the artist Ives Klein, “and his boundless male ego,” once attempted to trademark.

When Mallory asks Myrtle to remind her what spell she had used to travel around Hell so freely, Myrtle looks surprised. “My dear girl, I don’t believe it, you are starting to forget things!”

This doesn’t exactly surprise Mallory. Eleven trips there have been, many of them spanning four years or more. All were crushing failures, all. It fucks with the head. It has actually been a while since any of the time loops brought her face to face with her inveterate friend. 

“It had better fucking work this time, Myrtle,” Mallory says with a sigh.

“It’s your Father,” says Myrtle. “He’s so bothersome. How I do hate that boy.”    

 Phobos applies the last layer of topcoat to Mallory’s pinkie toe. “There,” he says, “You match the walls now.”

“Thank you, Phobos.”

“You will tell me before he arrives, won’t you? I don’t want to be here,” says Myrtle tartly. “As much as I would love to see your dear Mother, I can’t be in the same room as that man.”

“It isn’t his fault, Myrtle,” says the Granddaughter of Satan. “Knowing him, he’s probably been marinating in self recrimination ever since he learned the truth about Mom.”

“O goodness,” cries Myrtle sarcastically, “a whole twenty-four hours! Darling, most souls around here are beaten and broken for all of eternity. Have a little perspective.”

“True. I don’t know Myrtle. He’s my Dad so I guess I can’t be all that objective.”

“I will say one thing for that detestable little cur: he seems to have done a wonderful job raising you. And I suppose that couldn’t have been easy, knowing what he knew,” Myrtle adds grudgingly.

“Can you imagine being born under those circumstances, Myrtle? Knowing that you were created to destroy the world?”

“We all make choices, Little Bird.”

“Yes, but who knows better than you and me that the game of free will can be rigged easier than a milk bottle game at a carnival?”

Mallory knows that she may as well be defending her Father to an elegantly stuccoed wall. Being one of the more privileged denizens of Hell, Myrtle can remember shards of timelines that don’t strictly belong in the ‘current’ Overworld. Time functions differently down here- or rather, separately. This means that Myrtle has a dim awareness of the MULTIPLE times that Michael has killed her surrogate daughter Cordelia Goode, and she can’t forgive even one of them.

“Your Father is the reason I had to wait twenty-five minutes for a table at Le Diable the other night,” laments Myrtle in her soft, sing song voice. “The Fraisiers with elderflower and nougatine is worth burning for, but honestly, that is much too long to wait.”

Phobos rushes to agree. “EXACTLY! It’s all these newly minted dead. It is SO CROWDED here ever since your dad hit the nuclear button.”

“Langdon could never stick the landing, Dearest,” says Myrtle. “He planned out his little apocalypse not realizing that heaven is more exclusive than the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Day Concert, and that means all the riff raff ended up here. What a bore to be burdened with them…”

Mallory narrows her eyes. “If I recall correctly, Michael Langdon was nowhere nearby when you decided to use a- what was it, a melon baller? - to gauge out a mismatched set of eyeballs for your favorite Witch.”

Myrtle’s mouth becomes a stern red line. She does not appreciate snark from her juniors, even when they are, in fact, much older than they appear. “I accepted the consequences of my actions with the grace of Joan of Arc,” she says indignantly.

As much as she adores Cordelia Goode, Mallory still thinks it was pretty insane that she actually went through with lighting the flame that burned Myrtle Snow alive (just for getting her a pretty new set of eyes! Like, Bitch, you’re welcome!). Blah blah blah, Mallory knows that Cordelia HAD to do it, by witch law. But whatever.

And they say her Dad is the fucked up one…

Ok, so maybe Mallory is still a little bitter about that one trip she travelled back in time under an identity spell and Cordelia had convinced her to run her Father over three times with Range Rover.

“How did she die, this time?” asks Myrtle, cutting to the white meat of the matter.

Mallory knows that she means Cordelia. But there is no way that she is going to describe what Michael really did to the Supreme. “Cordelia didn’t die of kittens, Myrtle. Let’s just leave it at that and be grateful that time is going to be reversed.”

Myrtle grimaces. “How many chances is this boy going to get?” she says impatiently.

“As many as it takes. I am living proof of that.”

“Do we know that for sure my Dear?” asks Myrtle hopefully. “Maybe Michael put some of his Satanic man batter on ice, and your mom used that to inseminate herself- but only after his timely death.” 

“Myrtle,” Mallory groans. “Ew.”

“What? It is a possibility! Between modern science and the Nephilim phenomenon, darling, Michael could VERY easily have-”

“I grew up with my Father, Myrtle. He can’t die. It would be a paradox too far. Besides which, if Dad ever dies, Satan is just going to create a bigger, badder Antichrist and we’re back at square one.”

“I can’t imagine ‘badder’ than your Father...”

“Then imagine Michael Langdon without Y/n,” suggests Mallory.

Myrtle stares, blinks, then says, “Point taken, Dear.”

“The goal of my mission is to ensure both the reversal of the apocalypse AND my Dad’s survival,” says Mallory with an exhausted sigh. “That way, we stop Satan from making any more Antichrists, and the world gets to go on existing.”

“Children shouldn’t to be burdened with their parents’ messes,” says Myrtle archly.

“Believe me, Myrtle, I’ve heard that from my Father enough for a lifetime.”

“How do you think he’ll take it, Darling?” asks Myrtle. “Will he go gentle into that good night?”

Mallory is almost afraid to jinx the current trip by saying it out loud. “Myrtle, I think we’re close. I think this time, things might work.”

Mallory doesn’t often let herself indulge in flights of optimism. She has been disappointed far too often over the course of her multi year spanning mission.

She wants nothing more than to be able to return to the future, to embrace the Michael and Y/n who raised and know her. Mallory longs to go home.

Myrtle has just decided on an acid green colour for her nails when they hear the sound of the front doors creaking open.

“Mom and Dad!” exclaims Mallory, as Phobos and Myrtle slink into the shadows, making themselves the definition of scarce. 

………………………………………………………………..

The castle that Michael has brought you to is enormous. Each step you take upon the polished, ink black floor echoes. The loudest reverberation is at the interior of the entrance, a cavernous hall whose dimensions demand that you look up and gaze upon sculptural moulding that resembles a sprawling expanse of red stalactites. It is a lair fit for a Disney villain.

Michael is staring at you, emanating electric rays of anxiety.

“What nice place,” you say, because you know that that is what he is dying for.

His shoulders visibly drop a half an inch in relief. “I’ve been meaning to have it redone…”

“Michael, where is our daughter?”

Michael opens his mouth but is interrupted by the bolting sound of footsteps. Mallory appears, running down the enormous spiralling staircase just beyond the foyer, clad in a gown of black lace and a golden crown of leaves. Who else but Michael Langdon’s daughter would make crowns a staple of her sartorial identity, you think with a smile.  

“YOU’RE HERE!!!”

Before you can utter a word, your offspring has you in a squeezing embrace. This is more outright affection than you’ve seen Mallory lavish on anybody. When she is done with you, she stuns Michael by hugging him.

…………………………………………………………………

Several hour later, and the family reunion still has a tinge of the surreal.

Michael has apologized more times than either you or Mallory can count. Your daughter waves Michael’s transgressions away as though he has broken a worthless vase instead of murdered the entire world. You’re going to have your work cut out for you, you think, raising this little hellion, corralling all of those Langdon-esque influences…

Mallory refuses to divulge too much about the future.

She is relieved to be able to speak openly but is nonetheless aware that the two young people in front of her are not yet the parents she has known all of her life.

“It would be like reading a spoiler for your favorite TV show,” protests Mallory when you insist on asking WHEN precisely she is going to be born. “You’d be satisfied for a half a second, but then you’d regret it.”

“I know, I know, but it’s MADDENING. There is so little I actually understand…” You want to ask Mallory why they had had to allow Michael to do the apocalypse, why you and he had had to be separated for four years, how they you were going to make everything go back to before end times.

The scariest question is one that you have rarely allowed yourself to even wonder about: are you going to be able to reverse the apocalypse without hurting Michael?

Because fuck.

You aren’t going to let anything happen to him.

You better not be pregnant right now because that would mean his survival isn’t strictly guaranteed.

You won’t let him die.

You won’t.

It’ll happen over your dead body, in which case, good luck gestating your damn self, Mallory Langdon!

On the other hand… What if reversing time means that both you and Michael lose all of your memories?

Will you be able to find each other all over again?

Is the battle for his soul going to rage over and over again in an endless, futile time loop?

“I know that you’ve got a lot of questions,” says the aggressively perceptive Mallory. “I am sorry that I can’t answer all of them. But this isn’t my first rodeo, Ma. You have to trust me.”

Mallory just called you ‘Ma’.

‘Ma’.

Your heart splinters into a thousand slivers.

Michael is quiet. This is overwhelming for him, you know. Every know and then he’ll just stare back and forth between you and Mallory. Like he can’t quite believe what the world has granted.

“Tell you what,” says Mallory, drawing herself up from her seat on the sumptuous sofa in the main parlour. “Why don’t you both go and get some sleep? We can talk more and plan in the morning.”

Michael arches an eyebrow. “Hell does not have ‘morning’.”

You stifle a laugh. Mallory is managing you both, you grin to recognize, just as she has herded and guided and managed you for four years. She is a marvel, your daughter. A marvel. A handful. Hell crafted, but Heaven sent.

You are about to protest when you feel Michael’s warm lips brush the top of your hand. “I don’t think we’re going to win this argument,” he says.

“I promise,” says Mallory. “We’ll talk the morning. It will all be ok.”

…………………………………………….

“She’s holding back something big,” you tell Michael as soon as the demon who escorted you to the master suite of the infernal red castle has gone.

The bedroom is sumptuous, almost to the point of parody. Its centrepiece is a sprawling four poster bed whose four pillars are carved with various iterations of horned devils. Prodigiously pillowed and covered in fabric of rich burgundy, it is fit for a King, which is exactly who it is for. 

Instead of saying anything, Michael strides up to you and places a finger to your lips, a soft sensual entreaty of a touch. He looks hungry and haunted.

You realize, then, that Michael shares your fears, that, in fact, it is worse for him: he would rather die than become once more that lost, unknowing creature that he was.

His finger stays on your lips too long. The plaintive gesture becomes something else.

Slowly, he pushes you until you are plumb against the wall. Michael’s finger is replaced by his mouth. He is kissing hard, as though he would like to devour. You feel his warm leg assert itself between your thighs and you open shamelessly, grinding your crotch against the Gucci clad leg like an animal, willing to sell your soul to keep the delicious friction from ending.

You hear the sound of tearing fabric and realize that Michael has disrespected your skirt. You reach for his buttons, but Michael stops you, his hand closing bruisingly around your wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks in a voice of ice.

For several moments, your heart forgets to beat. Your brain is a fog of lust dazed confusion.

Michael’s beautiful lips curve into a mocking smile. “I didn’t bring you down here so that you could be in control.”

He takes one of your wrists in each hand and pins them tightly together above your head.

“Michael, wha-”

“Silence,” commands the Antichrist, and a wave of adrenaline washes over you. Your knees buckle as he swipes the base of your throat with a vicious tongue. “I don’t need you to talk, you pathetic little slut. I need you to FEEL.”  

Your clit jumps at those words, but your poor brain is still lagging behind.

“You told me on the boat today that you want to be ravaged,” Michael whispers darkly. “I am prepared to oblige. But you must obey me. Everything I say, you fucking do. Is that understood?”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no mistaking that Michael is, for all his imperious tone, genuinely seeking permission. Hope laces his words. There is a tremendous bulge in his trousers that you burn to touch.

You nod.

“Say it,” he orders.

“Yes, Michael.”

“I think,” he says with a languid, power drunk smirk, “that I would prefer, ‘My Dark Lord.’”

If your legs weren’t wrapped around his thigh, and your cunt wasn’t grinding desperately, you would roll your eyes. But that kind of pride isn’t something you can afford right now. “Yes, My Dark Lord,” you whisper.

“Good.”

Michael rewards you by lavishing your throat with more kissing and biting.

“Such a foolish little girl to follow me to Hell, Y/n…” he muses before scraping his teeth against your pulse. His voice is cold and mercurial, but his crystalline eyes are drugged with desire.

O god.

Outpost Michael is back. Unkind, unrelenting, sadistic, hot as hell, likes-to-play-psycho-sex-games-with-thirstbuckets-of-every-age-and-orientation Outpost Michael…

This seductive persona is, you know, a carefully cultivated mask. Beneath it, lies an ocean of Satanic insecurity.

But.

But there wasn’t a pair of panties that remained dry for long during an interview with Michael Langdon at Outpost 3. You’re so far gone, it’s ridiculous. His trouser leg is probably soaked.

Michael is doing this for you both, you realize. Because pleasure and submission are necessary for sanity right now. You do not know for how much longer these particular iterations of you are going to survive. Will you even know who Michael Langdon even is this time tomorrow? You need him to drive the terror and uncertainty from your soul. For this, you will do anything. You are willing to crawl and beg and humiliate yourself until Michael makes you shatter all of Hell’s pretty mountains with your cries.

A magical resistance forms where Michael’s hands hold your wrists. When he lowers his arms, you still feel pressure there. A spell holds you, pinned in place, as though primed for vivisection.

Michael winds a hand through your hair and yanks firmly. “If at any point, you would like me to stop. Say so.”

You nod impatiently. Then, realizing that isn’t sufficient, you add, “yes, My Dark Lord…”

Michael steps back to survey his handiwork, and you actually whimper at the absence of his touch.

“So fucking needy,” he sneers. O god. That SNEER. It is hot and delicious but also, WHO’S REALLY THE NEEDY ONE?

Michael performs a discreet motion with his hand and an interesting bit of magic occurs: every stitch of your clothing on your body melts away, as though its materiality has been composed, all along, of grains of sand.

“Get used to being naked,” says Michael, running his tongue lasciviously over his upper teeth. “Clothing is a privilege that a wicked, shameless Witch like you has to earn.”

Probably, you should laugh at that. But the thing about ‘Outpost Michael’ is that you would jump into a vat of acid to win his approval. You want to hear those gorgeous lips utter praise (which they never will).

“What do you want?” asks Michael, poised to the point of appearing indifferent. He should get an Oscar for this.

“T-to p-please you.”

Michael’s face is so warmly lit, so unfairly, extravagantly beautiful as he smiles. “And so you shall…”

Your pussy paints itself with that promise.

Michael draws nearer, his lips and breath ghost your face, so close, yet devastatingly far. He guides you forward, so that he can loom over and circle your body in 360 degrees. Anticipation drags against your skin like the knotted thongs of a cat o’ nine tails. You close your eyes, as though that will lesson the unbearable tension.

You hear Michael breathing. Then

SMACK.

You aren’t expecting the slap.

Michael uses his palm. Not too hard. But not soft by any measure of imagination. He is achingly precise. The sting of pleasure/pain lands on the gushing slit of your labia and sends shockwaves of sensation into your clit. The wet sound Michael’s hand against your arousal makes you want to bury your head in shame, at the same time as beg for more.  

You look at him, slack jawed.

“This cunt has given me a lot of grief, Y/n,” says Michael, cupping said cunt. His voice is low and intensely possessive. “It has kept me up at night. It has ruined my appetite. I maimed half of the personnel at Kineros Robotics over this cunt. It is too fucking perfect.”

Kineros Robotics??? You want to ask... But you don’t. You don’t wish to interrupt the stream of profanity that sounds like sacrament coming out of Michael’s mouth. You are trickling wetness all over his palm, grinding down, silently entreating him to slide fingers into the slick channel he claims makes him so crazy. Instead he removes his hand.

SMACK.

It comes down again, landing on your ass this time.

Michael ‘s watches you intently as he produces a square of cloth from one of his trouser pockets and gently wipes the streaming tears you didn’t even know were on your cheeks. His eyes are the glowing aquamarine of a Caribbean sea shore, and even as they smolder with fathomless arousal, Michael remains in total control.

His hand returns to your folds.

“There were times,” he whispers, lips lightly brushing your earlobe, “When I lay in my lonely bed and shook so bad remembering this cunt that I couldn’t even form a fucking fist with which to grab my own cock while imagining you…” You are surprised by how earnest Michael sounds, how sad, and… how accusatory.

“Surely you availed yourself of others,” you say with a sniff. The devil makes you say that, you suppose. You don’t want to know about Michael’s interim partners. And you don’t want him to know that you don’t want to know. You just want him to smack your pussy and ass again. But your jealous mouth has to go ruin everything…

You and Michael discovered sex together in New Orleans. Since then, you have remained untouched by anyone else. It wasn’t because of loyalty. It wasn’t because of prudery. You simply could not have imagined wanting it with anyone else. And now, four years after Michael’s perpetual jet engine of a libido had you copulating in gross bathrooms in chain restaurants, and under the minimal covering of bushes in residential areas, he’s become a… Is there even a word that covers it? Sex God? Daddy?  

“Did you avail YOUR self?” Michael asks, stiffening.

“No,” you admit. “But then, I didn’t have a whole worldwide network of followers…”   

Michael grimaces.

Ok, you think, ok, maybe that was unfair… You should apologize. Technically, you were ‘broken up’ at the time of Michael’s ascent to global annihilation... “I’m sorry, Michael-”

SMACK.

Your cunt vibrates from the swift, hard contact. Your drenched folds engorge, swelling red with sensation. 

SMACK.

SMACK.

SMACK.

On the fifth blow, your hips are jerking to meet his palm.

You are crying not from pain or fear, but joy.

“You SHOULD be sorry,” says Michael before delivering a healthy slap to your ass.

SMACK.

“That was rude, Y/n,” he chides. But he isn’t angry. Nothing being done here, is done in anger. His fingers dip back down to your pussy, as if to comfort the ripe, pleasurably throbbing flesh. He is breathing hard as he gently peels your lips apart then purses them together. There is a reverent, fascinated expression on his face and it steals your breath away. “I hope you understand why your rudeness must be met with punishment,” he says as he continues to play with your pussy. “It offends me to my soul that you believe I could ever take a lover but you.”

Your jaw drops.

Michael frowns and rubs your pussy a little harder. “And your surprise offends me.”

SMACK.

“Michael!”

“‘Dark Lord’,” he corrects. A smile teases at the corners or his lips. He steps back to admire your dripping core. “I’ve made your pretty cunt all plump and red,” he says, all innocence. “Each time I spank it, my hand gets wetter…” Of fucking course he brings his palm to his mouth and begins to lick obscenely.

You swoon. Your arms are starting to hurt. The very air feels saturated by your overwhelming desire for this man. You need him to fuck you and are so lost to the sensory and emotional overload that you hardly notice your body being levitated and floated toward the enormous, bedeviled bed.

Michael lays you down on your back. Your wrists are free, but your arms feel heavy at your sides. The whole experience is pleasantly disorienting. By the time you look down your body, Michael’s golden head is already descending.

You cry out when his mouth envelops you. Michael makes appreciative, vibrating sounds against your bursting sex.

You arch yourself against Michael, bringing your hands down to bury his face deeper, feeling his tongue move inside your gushing channel. You come almost immediately, bearing down on his face and weaving your fingers through his silky hair.

Michael gentles his ministrations, but only until the first trembling aftershocks subside. Then he begins to lick again, his pointed tongue as delicate as a butterfly sipping nectar from the cup of a flower. He savors the sound you make when he pumps two fingers inside of you, and your desperate pleas as his tongue whirls and flattens against your clit. He sucks the pearly button into his mouth and pushes you back over the slope of ecstasy for a second time.

But, this time, Michael’s ravaging mouth does not stop.

“Michael, no more, I can’t-”

The Antichrist lifts his head and glares at you across the flushed plane of your body. “Excuse me?” he asks in that liquid, dangerous voice. “I don’t care what you ‘can’ or ‘can’t’, Y/n. You are going to lie back and take it. I’ve had it UP TO MY FACE with Witches telling me what to do…” But when his mouth returns to your cunt, he moves it with aching, sipping softness, building pleasure slowly, until his fingers curl and the damn breaks, and the sound of his name is echoing through Hell.

You are spasming and vaguely aware of Michael’s climbing up your body, and stopping, for a while, to feast of your tits. He does it so feverishly, lavishing each taut peak with tongue and teeth and the perfect amount of sucking to send a direct line of answering pleasure to your pussy.

You feel Michael’s rod, hot and heavy against your drenched thigh and shudder with anticipation. Every fibre of your being is want. You would do anything to take him inside of your body.

Only Michael Langdon can do this to you. 

“A-are you going to fuck me now, My Dark Lord?” you ask, hope and all-encompassing need leaving no room for irony. 

“I think I will.”

You feel every exquisite inch of Michael’s cock as he feeds it, slowly, into your pussy. You moan as his mouth claims yours demandingly. There is no coaxing or negotiating involved in the kiss. He simply plunders.

Michael fucks you, at first, agonizingly slow, then, frantically. In that moment, there is nothing material in the realms of heaven, hell, or earth save for Michael Langdon. You cry out at the pain and pleasure of knowing him, the pain and pleasure of being alive, of being aware.

You hook your legs behind his back and meet his urgent, pounding thrusts. His fingers dance against the button of your clit. You pull his head to yours, lavishing his face with grateful, worshipping kisses. 

You howl with ecstasy as your orgasm shatters over you. “Michael!” you cry out, clutching him as though he were a raft amid crashing, drowning waves of pleasure and madness.

But Michael is madder still.

He bites into the soft flesh of your shoulder. There is blood. Michael sucks at it with breathtakingly savage passion. He adores your body with all of his being, with the good and the evil, with all of the burning purpose with which he killed the earth. He looks down, trembling. He takes your face between his palms and kisses you deeply. Michael does not speak, only fucks harder. Tears are falling.

Michael does not think he can bear for the beautiful act to end.

He is overcome with pleasure and fear and love.

It is enough, he thinks, in the frayed edges of his mind, that HE will remember this, even though you won’t…

He comes with a broken cry. 

Afterwards, you settle, contentedly in each other’s arms and Michael strokes the top of your head until you are asleep.

After a few minutes of savoring your divine weight against him, Michael slinks out of bed and pads out of the room.

Michael knows the corridors of this castle like the back of his hand, or your pussy.

He arrives at Mallory’s door and knocks.

It creaks open.

She has been expecting him.

“What took you so long?” she asks casually as he enters the gaudily furnished room. Then, shaking her head, she stops him. “On second thought, I definitely do NOT want to know…”

“We need to talk,” says Michael, calm on the inside, thrashing and howling violently within. “It is about your mother.”

Mallory arches an eyebrow.

“I may not share your gift for manipulating time,” he tells his daughter. “But I have deduced your plan.”

“Have you?” says Mallory in interest.

Michael nods. “I am afraid, Mallory, that it simply will not do.”

Mallory narrows her eyes, watching him intently. “Is that so?”

“You intend to remove both me and your mother from the timeline of earth, while securing our continued existence in Hell.” He pauses. “Am I wrong?”

Mallory’s thin mouth curls into a smile. “Not at all, Dad. It is much more complicated than that, but that IS the gist of it.”

“I am afraid I cannot allow Y/n to suffer that fate.”

Mallory stares. “What do you suggest we do instead?”

Michael takes in a steadying breath. He feels his heart- FEELS IT, PHYSICALLY, break in his chest.

“She must forget,” he says calmly. “I must be wiped from her memory completely. Y/n should get to lead a full, vivid life in the Kingdom of the living, then ascend to heaven where angels like her belong…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and happy New Year, beautiful readers!!  
> I am so sorry that it has taken me a million years to update! I have been visiting family and spending time with them, so the story stayed on the back burner for a while, even though I was itching to write.  
> I am so grateful for your patience and kindness!  
> I hope this chapter is not monumentally disappointing after such a long wait.
> 
> The blue that Myrtle talks about Yves Kline trademarking is known as 'International Kline Blue'.  
> Myrtle also quotes Dylan Thomas when she wonders if Michael will 'go gentle into that good night'.  
> The rivers of Hell are based on the Ancient Greek Underworld, as is the region of Tartarus.
> 
> Thank you so much for inspiring me and for giving my fic such time and love. I am truly unworthy of the support and generosity shown. Thank you so much.


	7. Chapter 7

“All tragedies deal with fated meetings; how else could there be a play? Fate deals its stroke; sorrow is purged, or turned to rejoicing; there is death, or triumph; there has been a meeting, and a change. No one will ever make a tragedy-and that is as well, for one could not bear it-whose grief is that the principals never met.”

― Mary Renault

……………………………………………..

 

Mallory paces back and forth before coming to her desk and tapping agitatedly upon it with scarlet nails. The surface is littered with books of magic that lay half open amid old glasses of wine, a few golden tiaras and a ring beset with a pearl the size of a plum. She mutters something inaudible under her breath, does the Princess of Hell, before launching herself at Michael. “O my god, Dad, I fucking KNEW you were going to be like this…”

“Watch your language, Young Lady!” Michael shocks himself by saying.

“O please, you swear all the time...”

“I also annihilated the human race. You are better than me, Mallory.”

That, Michael knows, is a gross understatement. Mallory is worth a billion of him. She is clever. Powerful. Wily. Steely. Determined. A fucking mastermind. A Witch to end all Witches, bathed in the glowing, indefinable power of Hell. But even if that were not the case, even if his Mallory was dim and unremarkable, Michael would feel pride and joy over the simple fact of her existence. Recognition racks him, painful and euphoric. So, THIS, he realizes, is what it is like… to be a Father.

Why hadn’t Tate or Vivienne felt pride and joy? Never mind. Michael knows why. His disastrous existence had not warranted it.

“Do you have ANY idea how hard I worked to line things up JUST SO in this timeline?” Mallory snaps.

Michael’s stomach clenches with guilt. He doesn’t- can’t afford, just now- to delve into that. “I appreciate the effort, Mallory. But I have also been conducting my own research…”

Mallory practically snorts. “O, HAVE you?”

The sass. Who could she have gotten that from, Michael wonders. “YES,” he replies.

“What kind of research?” asks Mallory with a dubious quirk of an eyebrow.

Michael bristles. People are always doubting him, now even his own daughter! Ok, so he doesn’t exactly have a magnificent track record of ‘doing his homework’… And, yes, those two mop haired idiots at Kineros had practically had to spell out ‘N-U-C-L-E-A-R-B-O-M-B-S’ and ‘I-L-L-U-M-I-N-A-T-I’ to him, when all Michael had come to them for was a Youbot, or seven. Whatever. Michael has learned from the mistakes of the past. He may not have had a bevy of Witches, or even Warlocks, to mentor him in the art of magic, but that doesn’t mean he is about to get caught with his dick in his hand. Again.

“There is an extensive library at Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men,” he explains with all the dignity he can muster. “I re appropriated the building to serve as a human outpost after the bombs fell. Upon my arrival there, earlier this week, I saw fit to peruse the library, in the event that it contained information on magic that might be of use to me. It was very illuminating.”

Mallory sighs. “Ok, Lucius Malfoy, let’s hear what you THINK you know...”

Michael doesn’t get the reference. Annoyed, he goes on. “There is a book in the Warlock’s collection known as ‘The Angulas’.”

Michael is stretching the truth. He had, in fact, resorted to the library only AFTER realizing that Mallory might be his daughter from the future. While you were showering, and otherwise preparing for your descent into hell, Michael had excused himself for a few minutes.

In the candle lit sanctum of the Chablis Behold’s old library, Michael had installed a floor length mirror and used Scrying to discover exactly which books might be pertinent to his cause. It was an art he had learned, ironically enough, during his brief stint at Robichaux’s. Michael focused on the mirror until the surface began to melt before his eyes into a shimmering gel. Then, he plucked what he needed. A shape of knowledge formed in his mind, rising above all other thoughts like a silvery crescent over a desert horizon. 

A book. A small book bound in ancient leather that had retained the colour of ivory. Its cover was blank but a symbol of a spider, rendered in fine red ink, crept delicately up the spine. The spider was, not, as one might assume, an illustration, but, rather, a signature. A Witch, the mirror told Michael, had lived, centuries ago, who had called herself, ‘The Spider’. Her born name was Angulas Reevus, so, she came to be known in annals of magical lore as ‘Angulas the Spider’. The name was fitting because all of the potions she had brewed had utilized venoms of arachnids as their base. Unlike, most of her kindred, Angulas the Spider had been a big fan of Satan. She believed that the apotheosis of magical arts could be achieved by marrying the Witchy with the Satanic. Her magnum opus, known simply as ‘The Angulus’, detailed practices of this unholy mash up. By some twist of fate, the last remaining copy of the book resided underground in Hawthorne’s library, indecipherable to the Warlocks because it was written in the language of Hell. 

Michael had shoved his hand into the surface of the mirror and pulled out the book. He stroked its leathery front with his thumb and felt a surge of dark power. The mirror had told Michael that page 441 contained what he wanted to know. 

“The Angulas…” Mallory breathes.

“You know of it?”

Mallory nods. Another bloom of pride: Michael’s daughter knows everything.

“The Warlocks should have burned that book a long time ago,” she says disapprovingly.

“Behold Chablis, the man who ran Hawthorne School before the bombs, contemplated doing that very thing,” says Michael, feeling a bizarre need to show off his Divination skills and impress his kid. “Many scholars dismissed the book as nonsense with no applicable use whatsoever. Chablis knew otherwise. Yet he never could bring himself to do the deed.”

“Why?”

Michael thinks for moment. “Human beings are odd that way, aren’t they, Mallory? Truly, they are the children of Pandora. Curiosity would have been the death of them if I hadn’t been.”

“Good old Behold...” says Mallory. A glimmer of affection wrinkles her eyes, as though she might have met the man personally a time or two in her travels looping through time. “Perhaps, he felt that he had no right to burn that which was the last, the only, the singular. To destroy a book, however dangerous its contents, is to snuff out the imprint of a mind.”

It strikes Michael as strange that so many of the people he would have considered his mortal enemies, or, at the very least, obstacles, seem to be on fabulous terms with Mallory. She appears as comfortable in the bosom of Witches as she is chatting with demons.

“You were born in Hell, yes?” Michael asks his daughter.

“Yes.”

Michael exhales. “Then there is no reason why it should not work.”

Mallory crosses her arms. Something has changed in her demeanor. The look she gives Michael is less of a challenge than a plea. “I know what you’re thinking Dad…”

“Hell is a chaos where paradoxes breed and feed like maggots in a carcass. And you, dearest Daughter, harness that chaos. ‘Absolutum Infinitum’,” says Michael, naming the horrible spell that is going to wipe him from your memory. “You are the only person in recorded history to be born in Hell, Mallory. As such, you are the only being in existence with the power to negate the rules of what is ‘possible’. You have the ability to give your Mother back her normal life. ”

“But if Mom forgets about you before I am born-”

“Clever Girl,” says Michael fondly, “But I am not going to fall for that.”

Mallory frowns.

“You are a fixed point in time Mallory. Unique. Unlike any life form. You exist no matter what. You cast the parameters of your mission to be simple: time loops only if I die, or the Apocalypse fails to be reversed. Your original plan was to remove your mother and me from Earth’s timeline through the use of a spell called, ‘Tempus Insens’. Correct?”

Mallory nods reluctantly. Michael goes on.

“When you perform the spell, the apocalypse gets erased, but instead of killing us, your unearthly magic would restore our bodies and souls to Hell, where, in a misbegotten twist, Y/n and I would reign for eternity as King and Queen. My immortality would ensure that no other Antichrists are created to take my place. Eventually, you would be born, and your mother and I would send you, with the heaviest of hearts, back in time to deal with my foolery. Isn’t that it?”

Mallory glares at Michael. “Well, what’s wrong with that? Everyone gets everything they want- O, I’m sorry, MINUS the apocalypse. I get to go home and hang out with the version of you that I actually like, you and mom continue to be the gooiest, most embarrassing, lovey dovey couple of all time, everybody wins! Why do you want to ruin it?”

Michael remains outwardly calm as, inside of him, the most acute agony he has ever known diffuses like a secret lump of salt. 

He does not let Mallory see his suffering. No child should watch a parent splinter apart. His Mallory is going to be light and free, damn it. Michael closes his eyes as his fingers find the bridge of his nose and squeeze, begging back tears.

His voice only shakes a little when he says, “’Absolutum Infinitum’. With that spell, you will restore your mother to her normal life on Earth, without cancelling your own existence. Nothing about your life or memories will change. The Earth will be as it was, erased of all trace of me.”

“And you would remain in Hell, alone.”

“Precisely so.”

“Is that what you think she wants?” Mallory demands angrily. “You think that Y/n would rather forget? To live oblivious of the very existence of the love of her life?”

Michael winces. “Y/n has given me my world, Mallory. Shall I repay her by having her exiled from hers?”

“Why not give her a choice in the matter?”

“I can’t,” he chokes out.

Mallory lets out a laugh, a beautiful, bitter sound that squeezes the vice over Michael’s heart. “Future You warned me about what a monumental dipshit you’d be,” she says. “I just didn’t realize you were going to pull a stunt like this, be so damn… honorable. It’s idiotic!”

Michael twists the enormous ring on his middle finger. It is the only thing that keeps him tethered to the grotesque reality of the moment.  “It isn’t ‘honour’,” he grates out. “If I had an atom of honour in my being, Mallory, you would not even exist.”

Mallory shakes her head. “This isn’t right. I mean, it’s technically possible, but it isn’t right…”

“Free your mind of the idea of ‘right’,” Michael tells his daughter, “See hell.” He pushes open the balcony door and the room fills with the cool, clean air of night. Outside, the sky glitters with the calamity of stars. Michael gazes up and feels himself tremble. “You were born into a realm infinitely emptier and colder than the space between those stars, Mallory. For that, I am sorry.” Beneath the sky, the folded mountain range shivers with prismatic colour, rising above the shore of the river Lethe. Upon the river, glides a barge. Even from this distance, Michael can tell that it is over-full, overrun with people. No doubt, this is Legba’s seventh or eight trip this evening…

“I love it here!” Mallory protests. “Mom loves it too. We travel sometimes, to other places. But we’re happiest here. You wouldn’t believe how happy we all are…” She groans in frustration. “If only I could tell you… if I only I could make you see. This place will change, over time. The Hell of my time is different. I mean, it isn’t Neverland, but it’s different.”

Michael is so very tempted to believe that.

It strikes him as painfully ironic: he has participated in his fair share of Black Masses over the past four years, the theatrical slicing of throats with curved knives. But only now, for the first time, does Michael understand the meaning of ‘sacrifice’. This time, it is his own heart he is going to cut out, in service of something bigger and better than him.

“You are being a coward.”

The accusation doesn’t even wound Michael. “No,” he replies, “Not this time.” It is the truth. To live without you is a prospect so frightening that the idea of being dead is a joke by comparison.

“It is too much, what you are asking of me-” says Mallory, shaking her head.

“If you do not do as I say,” says Michael calmly, “I will have to play my hand. You may be my daughter, Mallory, but I am the human incarnation of Satan, and I can choose not to cooperate with your plan. If I decide it, the Apocalypse will stay as is.”

“You wouldn’t…”

“I wouldn’t? Would you be willing to stake the world on that assumption? How well do any of us know our parents? Come now, daughter of Hell, do you harbour some naïve illusion that I feel a scrap of empathy for the seven billion who died?”

“Honestly? I don’t know,” says Mallory. “But you do regret it.”

“Only because of Y/n,” Michael retorts. After a moment, he adds more gently, ‘And because of the reams of suffering that the act caused you to go through.” Michael can barely get the words out. Hurting you both is the regret that flays him alive.

Mallory narrows her eyes. For a long time, she regards the Hell-sprouted evil that she has always known as ‘Dad’. “It won’t be a reality that you can just snap your fingers and wake up from,” she says at last. “Once I have performed the spells, I will seal the timeline and ward it. The alterations will be irreversible, even by you.”

“That is a good thing,” says Michael, “as I am weak, and am bound to change my mind.” He swallows, wondering how many nights without you in his bed it will take before he is so sick and desperate that he uses every dark power in his arsenal to drag you back to him, kicking and screaming through time.

“I don’t understand, Michael,” says Mallory. She uses his name, perhaps, Michael thinks, because she is not asking as a daughter, but a stranger who cannot quite fathom the mangled, twisted creature before her. “Why do you want this?”

‘Want’? What a cruel word…

How to explain?

Michael remembers that evening after his Grandmother threw him out of her house. For hours, he had sat in the park, crying. Then, a girl had arrived, and Michael broke wide open with longing. You were, it seemed, dropped from the angels. For the next few weeks, he tasted life. He tasted joy so delicious it was poison on his tongue. Loneliness, rejection, his Grandmother’s repulsion and disappointment, the way the neighbor children had glared and hid their pets and kept their distance all his life, the hatred, the bile, the failure: it had been burned away, as though you were an exploding star and his whole evil being a mere particle of hydrogen.

But, even then, at times, Michael had waited for the proverbial other shoe to drop, waited for you to come to your senses, to abandon his overwarm bed and run back to your real clan, your coven of witches.

Run. Ha. As if he could have let you stay away… For four years, the knowledge that he would find you again was the divine pain that had anchored Michael to life. 

This time, he won’t even have that.

“You made your Mother come to the park for me, didn’t you?” Michael says. “All those years ago, you sent her to me.”

“Yes.”

“That’s just it, you see,” Michael says, summoning all of his strength to choke back tears. “Y/n never had a choice. She was thrust into my path, fated to love a monster. FATED, cursed…”

“You aren’t that difficult to love, Dad. Besides, if anything, I talked you down. I told her what a preening little nugget of psychopathy you were… Although,” adds Mallory wryly, “I DO excel at reverse psychology. My point is that in all the timelines I have visited where you and Mom actually met and got to know each other before… before... before, well, before bad things happened- Mom fell hopelessly in love with you. IN ALL OF THEM.” Mallory repeats for emphasis.

Michael groans. Love him. You do. You bestow upon Satan’s son more love than his blackened rind of a soul can hold. The poor, gnarled thing must swell and bleed to accommodate it. You love Michael, even after he has stolen from you everything that can be stolen, including your free will. If you abhorred every pore of him, it would be more than he deserves.

And so how does one pay tribute to such a love?

By sparing you from the mouth of Hell. How could you ever live here, Michael wonders. How could his soft-hearted beloved bear a land full of personal hells and rotting rivers? How could you trade life for evil and misery? 

“It must be done tomorrow,” says Michael. If he has any more time to think, he will turn away from his decision like the slime trailing coward he has always been called.

Because it would be so easy…

So easy to cede to the one desire of his heart, the desire which makes all others he has known- even the death of the world- seem alien, the desire to keep you.

To take what he wants as he has always done, to spoil himself with your cunt and your heart and your life.

To live in your arms like a believer in a temple.

To spend his eternity finding new ways to wring sighs of pleasure from your lips and watch your blow like a thistle in the tornado of your orgasms. To watch your face scrunch and slacken with ecstasy, to feel your hands on him, in his hair, on his cock, in his soul. To hear you babble as your knees buckle around him…

To listen to you laugh.

To hold hands and not even think about it.

Instead, Michael will inhabit hell alone. 

Tomorrow, he thinks.

Tomorrow the sun will set on his life and never return. It is better this way, Michael knows. Sunshine should not be manacled to the Devil’s son. Not even the most sumptuous villa in Hell should house the Sunshine.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

A stay in the Penthouse at the Hotel Georges V in Paris, a dance with Cecil Beaton in the coconut grove on a moonlit night on the North Island in the Seychelles, a haircut from Vidal Sassoon circa 1966, a glass of Chateau Lafite 1787: to Myrtle’s mind, much that was worthwhile in life has one thing in common with much that is worthwhile in the afterlife: it helps to know the right people.

And Myrtle Snow knows the right person.

Before the arrival of Mallory Langdon, she had been rotting away in a personal hell too foul to even recount (let’s just say that fast food and lucite heels were involved). And now, here Myrtle is savoring the finer aspects of Satan’s realm: the ballet, the literary salons, the amuse-bouche, the couture ateliers, those exclusive concerts that Niccolò Paganini gives (many an innocent, thinks Myrtle stroking her chest with a breathy sigh, must have been led stray by the strains of that man’s violin…)

Now, if only the Apocalypse could hurry up and be reversed so that Myrtle won’t have to look at all of the streaming, depressed masses getting shuttled around on barges and the like. It puts her in mind of the train scene in ‘Dr. Zhivago’, only there’s no Omar Shariff to make it half bearable.

Michael Langdon… that little worm. He sure knows how to ruin her nightcap.

Myrtle grimaces and brings a long, jade cigarette holder to her lips.

From the balcony of her apartment in the red castle on the banks of Lethe, Myrtle used to have a pristine view of those kitschy mountains she has grown quite fond of. The Lethe, truth be told, is no less beautiful than the Danube. But now, all she sees night in and night out are ships. Ships. Ships. Sad people. Exhausted looking demons. And ships.

Myrtle tugs her mustard pashmina snugger about her shoulders and takes a sip from her glass of Cognac. The thing about being in hell is that it is poor form to wish that one’s loved ones were here. So, Myrtle closes her eyes and misses Cordelia, without wishing anything in particular.

Myrtle did a bad thing once, so she is going to stay in hell no matter what. The drama of earth will not affect the shape of her life. It is a melancholy thought. But then, melancholy is the inevitable disease of eternity, she supposes. Although, to be honest, Myrtle doesn’t exactly know how long she has been here.

Because, here, time is different.

Another lungful of smoke. 

“Still awake?” comes the sweet, soft voice of Mallory Langdon from the French doors. The girl steps onto the balcony and plops herself onto the plush seat next to Myrtle.

“Cognac?” offers Myrtle.

Mallory nods and accepts the crystal glass Myrtle has poured for her.

“How was your family reunion, dear?” Myrtle inquires.

“Well… We may have a bit of a problem.”

“Problem?”

“My Father appears to have grown an altruistic bone…”

“There is only one type of bone your Father has, darling, and I think half the castle heard it in action about an hour ago.”

Mallory scrunches up her face. “MYRTLE! Gross!”

“Apologies, Dear. Go on, tell me, what has Michael gotten into that pretty little head of his now?”

Mallory takes a deep breath. “He wants me to perform ‘Absolutum Infinitum’ on my Mother.”

“Whatever for?”

“So that she can forget all about him and keep living on Earth in the new and improved, Apocalypse-free time line.”

“I see.”

A barge full of people crosses their sightline. Someone, appropriately enough, appears to be vomiting over the side of the ship.

“Are we quite sure, Dear,” Myrtle asks her young friend as gently as she possibly can, “that Michael didn’t just say that to throw you off your course? Could he be cooking something duplicitous, perhaps?”

“No,” says Mallory firmly. “I have known him my whole life- and I am not nearly as young as I look. My Father has never once lied to me.”

Myrtle grants this her grudging consideration. “Not many children can say that about their parent,” she admits.

Mallory’s brow is knit in thought. What a lovely girl, Myrtle thinks, not for the first time. That such a poised, self-possessed, resourceful young woman could have the Antichrist for a Father! C’est un scandale!

“I should have been prepared for this,” whispers Mallory. “It’s just that it’s been so long since I was last with them together, since I saw…” She sighs. “Myrtle, I had forgotten the way he looks at her.”

Ordinarily, Myrtle might coo at something like this. She is a romantic, after all, and don’t let it ever be said otherwise! But this is Michael Langdon they are discussing, the creature who blithely murdered her coven more times, and in more creative ways, than Myrtle can bear to count. “Forgive me, Dear, but that is asinine.”

“It isn’t!” Mallory protests. “If you knew what I know, you would understand. It is different where I’m come from. All of Hell has changed. You see him as the Antichrist, a killer, a destroyer. But when she is with him, he is full of love.”

Myrtle lets out a musical laugh. “Young, dumb and full of cum, is more like it, my Dear, to borrow that vulgarest of phrases.”

Mallory reddens. “Myrtle Snow you are the rudest person I know. THAT’S MY DAD.”

“I know. Forgive me, Dear.”

Myrtle puffs an extravagant cloud of smoke into the night air.

As distasteful as Myrtle finds the thought of Satan’s son molesting his bride in every tower and every grotto and every river delta in Hell, she knows that it will be worse- infinitely worse- if Mallory heeds Michael’s wish and leaves him here alone and heartbroken.

Myrtle would never go so far as to say that the murderer of Cordelia Goode can be redeemed. But, perhaps, if the boy has the hand of a wise, compassionate, superior female guiding him, he might be tolerated; tolerated in much the same manner that one might tolerate a benign mole, or a Pre-Raphaelite painting, or one of those Concerto Grossos by Alfred Schnittke that Myrtle pretended to like up until the moment she turned forty and misplaced all of her fucks.

“I think,” she tells Mallory, “that I may have an idea.”

Mallory brightens.

“But,” Myrtle cautions, “I don’t think that your Mother will approve of it.” 

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

During some interval in Hell’s eternal night, you awake to the discovery that you are no longer curled snugly against Michael. Beside you, the big, hellish bed is cool with the lack of him. There is no light in the room save for the meagre, amber glow of a brazier. Fear strikes you like a lightning bolt. You rub your eyes and sit up.

“Michael?” you call into the darkness.

You rise from the bed and slip on a rather ostentatious silver robe which you think is probably Michael’s. You pad to the door, half expecting to find it locked. It isn’t.

In the corridor, identical doors appear to stretch into perpetuity.  The black walls are lacquered and reflective. It puts you in mind of Versailles, of that Great Hall of Mirrors, which you have heard extolled as the height of grandeur, but which, in its time, reeked of every conceivable bad smell.

Ever since you got here, your senses have struggled to shrink the scope of the red castle into a something manageable. Though it appears colossal from the outside, the inside feels bigger still, like a country that swallowed a planet.

Apart from a crew of demons, who lives here?

You have an inkling that Hell, for all its star sprayed expanse, has a nerve centre, and that you are in it.

“Michael?” you call. 

An altogether overwhelming instinct whispers to you to disregard your clawing fear… to stop at one particular door… to turn the handle… and open.

You are expecting horror, a personal hell, the kind of looping, nightmare holodeck thing that your Coven friends told you about. Instead, you are inside a dark ballroom.

A young woman’s voice pierces the shadows. “You mean a ‘holoprogram’,” says the voice.

“W-what?”

“’Holoprogram’ is the term for what you were thinking is like a personal hell. A ‘holodeck’ is when it’s on a space ship. ‘Holosuites’, on the other hand, can be rented out as-”

“A-are you reading my mind?” you ask.

A small, brunette girl steps out from the dark. Her smile is warm, instantly disarming. “Clairvoyance is my jam,” she says. “But lately, I’ve also made ‘Telekinesis’ and ‘Concillium’ my bitches.” She proffers her hand. “Hi. I’m Nan.”

You realize, entirely too late, that you were lured here through a subtler form of ‘Concillium’ than you have ever encountered. This girl is impressive.

“I’m Y/n.”

“I know who you are,” Nan says with a twinkle.

“I think we might have some friends in common,” you say, then instantly regret it. It seems cruel to remind this girl that she died, and that the world went on without her, that her coven had recruited new wards.

“But they’re dead too now,” says Nan, reading your thoughts. “Only, they’re DEAD dead, and I’m here in Hell hanging out with my Boo.”

“Papa Legba?” you venture.

The girl fairly beams.

‘A Tale as Old As Time’, you think: boy meets girl, boy is girl’s soul keeper, they bond over Creole cooking and torturing Charles Manson… You suppose, that if anyone can relate to Nan’s relationship dynamic, it’s you. After all, your ‘boo’ destroyed the soul of every witch in your coven. And it wasn’t, you suspect, because he had feared they posed a threat his apocalypse, it was spite. Pure, simple spite.

“It’s ok,” says Nan gently. “Your friends will be back. Everything is going to go back to the way it was before.”

“How do you know?” you ask. “Did you read Mallory’s mind?”

Nan flashes a mischievous smile and nods.

“What did you see?” you can’t help asking. You know it isn’t good to read the blogs before seeing the movie, but you just HAVE to know…

“I’m not supposed to say too much,” says Nan in a conspiratorial hush. “All you should know is that Hell is going to get better one day, when you are Queen.”

“’Better how’?” you ask. It feels as though the two of you are discussing prison reform.

“Michael likes it when people suffer. You don’t. Compromises are important in a relationship,” explains Nan. “Papa and I are always negotiating. For example, he stopped ordering people to kidnap newborns because I asked, so I stopped flirting with that demon that looks like Shawn Mendes, because he asked.”

“None of the demons look like Shawn Mendes.”

“Nuh uh, not true,” says Nan, “They can make themselves look like anything they want. Why do you think Papa’s so hot?”

Your head spins. You have many questions.

"One of the Demons looks like Ryan Reynolds," says Nan.  
"Nan, I think that IS Ryan Reynolds. He's kind of a fixture around here."  
Nan's eyes widen.  
"What else can you tell me about the future?"

“I’m not supposed to tell you too much,” whispers the Witch.

You have a feeling that what Nan DID tell you is what Mallory has decided is necessary for you to know as part of her master plan.

“I gotta go,” says Nan. "There are WAY too many people here and Papa needs my help."

The girl twirls her cape and is gone before you can sputter a farewell, leaving you alone in the black opulence of the ballroom, thinking about Hell reforms.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

When he does not find you sleeping peacefully in the bed that he so reluctantly vacated to go talk to Mallory, Michael feels ice water run through his body.

Have you left him for good? Was Hell too foul and horrible to spend another minute in?

No. No. No. Michael tells himself. That that isn’t your style. You have proven, time and again, your reluctance to do the sane thing and abandon him.

The old ballroom of the red castle is where, once a century, the demons throw a lavish party. Michael has been told that the event is the ‘be all, end all’, replete with dancing, skull chalices and a gallery of musicians. The rest of the time, the room lies dark and abandoned. Michael presses his hand to the warmth of your side of the bed. A clear picture forms in his mind: this is where he will find you.

Michael bursts the doors of the ballroom open with a flourish of magic. Inside, the enormous, decadently paneled hall is dark save for the starlight that pours from a single set of uncovered French doors. The tenderness which fills him at the sight of your silhouette against pooling light nearly knocks Michael off his feet.   

You turn to look at him and gasp, shoulders visibly slackening with relief.

Distress. On your face. HE made you distressed.

You are running toward Michael before the embarrassingly inadequate words of contrition can stumble out of him.

When he has you in his arms, Michael has a notion that he should stop. That he should keep from kissing you. But it is painful, intolerable, Illogical not to, and the act flows from him, before his will has time to interfere.

Kissing happens more reflexively than breathing these days.

Michael has a rather gorgeous mouth. He has known this about himself for a long time. It is the beautiful shape and the proportions, he knows, that make people crazy. The bottom lip is ever so slightly plumper than the top, with the hint of a cleft. It is a mouth that manages to give off, at once, the impression of unbridled carnality, and that of having been crafted with immaculate care by the hand of an angel. Michael was first alerted to the effect his mouth has on people by the unsavory way his Satanic followers had stared at it when he delivered unholy sermons, as though they would have liked to devour the thing that was so much more likely to devour them.

Michael allows his self control to be pulverized by the kiss because, after tonight, he will no longer be touching you with this disgusting mouth at all. After tonight, he will not pollute you with the lips that fed upon the heart of a young virgin that Miriam Meade had lured into her car on a rainy evening. Just for him.  

Michael would do anything, would employ the darkest of magicks, to tattoo the feeling of your lips on his own forever. But over time the sense memory will fade. Michael has observed many a personal hell and he knows: when one’s prison is eternity, the membrane between what is wished for and what is becomes thick, and opaque as sour milk.

Michael is so impassioned by the kiss that he resists, audibly groaning in protest, and gripping you tighter, when you attempt to pull away. When you succeed in drawing yourself back, you see that he looks paler than ever before. You struggle to remember the demon faced iteration of your lover, but you think that this might be whiter and deader than even that. Michael’s response to your probing look is an attempt at a smile. His eyes, which shimmer crystalline with moisture, are untouched by the valiant contortion of muscles. You smooth back the strands of hair that cling to his wet cheeks, and Michael leans into your hand like a cat. The grateful rapture with which he inhales as he anticipates the contact pierces your heart.  

He pulls you into another kiss. It is aggressive and desperate, as though he believes that all of your molecules will shoot apart if he does not hold them together by sheer force of possessiveness. There is aching in that kiss. And fear. His fingers are twining your hair, scratching and pulling. It might hurt, you aren’t sure. Michael’s sublime mouth is all that exists, the pleasure and torment. The cavernous room fills with his gasps. Or are they yours? Who knows…

“Michael,” you whisper when there is a sliver of space between you, “where have you been? Are you all right?”

“Please,” he rasps. “Let’s not talk, Y/n. Just for tonight.”

You are brutally aware of the erection that is fairly pulsing against your thigh. Your nipples harden against his chest. Michael can feel them, you know. You can tell by the liquid way he is staring. Your mouth is looking for words when his head dips o so slowly, and he closes his lips over your right nipple, sucking it through the flimsy fabric of your robe, as though he cannot be bothered by the obstruction. You moan and let your head fall back into his waiting palm. Michael bites. The sting of it is exquisite, toe curling. You grind against him shamelessly. Then, faster than your mind can register what is happening, Michael is bridal carrying you out of the ballroom.

His heeled footsteps echo through the labyrinthine corridors. You squeal and tap Michael’s shoulders. What if someone sees? The Underworld is not the place to be traipsing about like a pair of horned up teenagers…

“Michael, put me dow-”

Michael seals your lips with his and it feels so good that you melt into non-resistance all the way back to your room.

For the second time tonight, you find yourself tossed unceremoniously onto the bed. Your robe, that delicate, iridescent, costly seeming thing, is evaporated. Your nipples are damp from Michael’s earlier assault. Every nerve in your body hums and thrums with desire as you gaze up at him.

What a powerful, beautiful man he is…

Michael is standing over you, lordly, perfect. You are drunk with it. You can hardly believe that the hunger in those tilted, lupine eyes is for you. A tense crease forms between his eyebrows as you raise yourself to your knees and palm the bulge in his pants. Michael lets out a groan at the contact. His beautiful lips curl into an almost snarl. Encouraged, you lean forward and undo his belt buckle. Michael hisses his approval. It is a throaty, dirty sound that permeates the air and makes your pussy throb to the point of anguish. With great slowness and deliberation, you pull down the zipper of his fly, licking your lips as you reach down his pants to the hot silk that overlays iron. By the time you free his cock, the slit is already weeping with arousal.

“Look what you do to me…” Michael grinds out. There is an inflection of accusation in the statement, as well as awe.

You press a deep kiss to skin at the base of his cock in a gesture both assertive and supplicating. You hear Michael panting above you.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh,” you whisper soothingly. Your eyes lock as you wrap your hand round the shaft and slowly begin to stroke up and down. Michael watches in a helpless frenzy as you draw your lips slowly up the underside, darting your tongue out, savoring every millimetre of flavor, and sighing your appreciation.

“Fuck…” hisses Michael as his eyes close and his head falls back. The lovely, sinuous expanse of his throat glows in the firelight as his mouth falls open and babbles profane nothings.  

The Antichrist’s fingers are in your hair as you tease his glans and suck up and down the pulsing slickness. You can’t wait to be impaled on this cock, you think with a sigh. Just the thought of Michael spreading you open, thrusting inside, using and filling you, calls all of the blood in your body to your cunt. You moan vibration all around him.

The firelit room is choked with the cacophony of passion. Licking. Suction. Groaning. Moaning. Pleading. Taking.

You are high on the sensations, lapping him up and giving it your all, attempting to suck Michael’s very soul out through his cock.  

In that moment, it feels as if the universe rests upon sating him, of torturing and indulging Michael in the same way he has done innumerable times to you. The more lost you become in his salty taste and the sound of his begging, the more you ache with your own answering arousal. You are about to bring down one of your hands to strum upon your clitoris, when Michael gently pushes your head away. There is a rather obscene popping noise as lips part with dick.

You are about to whine, about to dive your mouth back onto that dick, when you are arrested by the look in Michael’s eyes.

He looks haunted. But he also looks fucking serious.

The frantically fast, but almost robotic way he takes off his own clothes makes your spine ripple.

You feel the bed dip as Michael climbs in next to you. “Lie back,” he commands in a voice that dares you to disobey.

You do. Michael climbs over you. His face is next to yours, but before you can get a good look at the thing that is breaking behind his gaze, he kisses you. You moan as his fingers slide down and you’re your arousal slick folds. Michael’s tongue mashes yours sloppily as he parts your labia and drags a talented thumb over your clit.

“Wet, without my even having to touch you…” he mutters against your lips. The scornful way he pronounces it makes your cunt pulse against his plundering fingers.

Sliding in and out of your sodden passage, Michael moans in a way that makes you wonder, for a moment, whether Hell has not endowed him with penis-like sensations on the backs of his fingers. He swallows your cries as you buck your hips against him.

“P-please,” you whisper.

“Please what?”

Michael removes his hand. Your nerve endings scream his absence.

“P-please fuck me!”

The Academy Award worthy way Michael sighs, as though the effort is beneath him, but he will do it anyway, is belied by the trembling of his body, and the crash of his heart against yours.

Michael slides on top of you and nudges your legs open. The weight of his cock is poised at the entrance of your body and it is torment and bliss to wait for him to fill you. 

You gasp and clutch his back as you feel yourself stretch. Your pussy is full, taut, grateful for the presence of its King (O my god, DID YOU REALLY JUST THINK THAT? He must never know. You would never fucking live it down if Michael knew…)

You clench around Michael. He shudders, shoving in and out, hitting the magic spot that coils and ebbs with each building stroke. You wonder how an act so simple and carnal can feel like a holy invocation…

Michael rubs your clit with his hand, and you whimper at the enormity of pleasure welling up between you, within you.

Golden hair falls, framing Michael’s beautiful, contorted face. You lean forward to taste his lips. Unable to stop himself, he plunges his tongue into your mouth, sucking and moving it lasciviously in time to his thrusts. You moan, eager to feed him, eager to nourish his need with all of your being. Because you need him as well. Even more.

You cry out as Michael hits the overwrought, over pleasured sweet spot inside you that sends you careening toward the dizzying height of orgasm. Your body curls and spasm beneath his, jerking in a staccato of sensation.

Michael drives in one last time before he too loses himself, shatters, flies apart.

For a long afterward, you hold him and whisper words of love, the kinds of things he should have heard every day of his life since the time he was born.

Sleep begins to lay its claim on you, even as something- a thought or a premonition lingering like a shadow on the outer edge of your awareness- whispers to stay awake.

‘It’ll be ok,’ you tell yourself, lulled by meaningless circles Michael draws on your shoulder with the pads of his fingers.

………………………………………………….

Michael holds you nestled against him, your sleeping head on his chest. He can feel your heart beating, filling the dark room with its sweet, steady thump.

Tears stream from his eyes. Thank Hell for the dark.

…………………………………………………….

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the continued, overwhelmingly kind outpouring of support for this little story! Thank you so much. It is honestly the best feeling ever! You have no idea how happy it makes me!!! Thank you!  
> It was super duper fun to have Myrtle evoke Niccolo Paganini, the 'Devil's Violinist' a virtuoso so keenly admired in his time, that his artistry was thought to be the result of having sold his soul to the devil.  
> The party that the Demons are mentioned to throw once a century is extremely loosely inspired by the 'Devil's Ball' that Woland throws in Mikhail Bulkakov's devilish masterpiece, 'The Master and Margarita'.  
> The 'holoprograms' that Y/n and Nan talk about are, of course, from various iterations of Star Trek. I am a Trekkie for life, but I hope that that bit was not off putting for those who aren't. Ditto, the Lucius Malfoy reference. (And yet, throughout fandom, the eternal question rages on: has Michael read Harry Potter?)  
> Thank you guys so much for sticking with me and inspiring me to believe my hobby to be one worth indulging in!!  
> This story is going to be winding down to its natural conclusion in the next chapter or two, with a probable prologue to be included as well.


	8. Chapter 8

 “Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you.”

 

― Ovid

…………………………………………………..

The press of warm fingers and cold, metal rings nudges your thighs apart. Despite your dubious status as Satanic Consort, and much to Michael’s delight, you have not lost the ability to blush. Especially when the Antichrist says, “Good Girl,” in that way that turns your spine to molasses and your skin pebble with gooseflesh beneath his drugged gaze.

It isn’t a comfortable position, per se.

The flats of your bare feet rest against cold wood. You are naked- but of course- and prone atop a desk whose height Michael has magicked to be in perfect alignment with his face so that can he sit comfortably in his desk chair. The most secret part of you is presented- no other word for it- presented like sweet fruit waiting to be cleaved and devoured. His position is such that, were it not for your spread-eagled body, an outside observer entering the room and seeing him from behind might think Michael was looking over paperwork or fiddling with one of his infernal Outpost ‘lists’.

Michael stares. Just stares. Dazed. Intoxicated, yet also supremely focused, like he is seeing for the very first time. Leaning in until his nose is almost touching you, he inhales. His eyes close and there follows what can only be described as a kind of full body shudder brought on by olfactory pleasure. When he opens them, torrid blue-green bores into you and a pointed pink tongue darts out to touch his upper lip.

“Fuck,” rasps Michael, then leans in for another heady drag.

Do all men swoon in the presence of a ripe, open pussy, or is Michael Langdon special?

The question is forgotten when he fingers your labia apart and his watering mouth descends.

Michael groans. The sound vibrates exquisitely through your cunt and spine. You sigh as the tip of his tongue laps a shatteringly slow stripe from your perineum to your clit. He trembles with the agony of holding back, of keeping it gentle. It takes a cosmos of self control for Michael to brush his slackened lips over your clitoris without eating you whole. You moan your frustration and twine your fingers insistently through his golden torrent of hair. You don’t know how much more of this ‘lipping’ you can take.

“Michael, please…”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” he hisses. Then his head falls in again and he growls into your cunt. Fingernails dig into the skin of your thighs, marking without mercy, punishing you for tormenting him with your plaintive little sighs and whimpers. Michael bites down gently.

But O…… he’d like to tear you apart limb from limb for rushing him, for making him WANT to rush, for making him want you that much.

Because he’s double fucked now, is Michael. To feast upon your sloppy, sopping cunt is something he needs more urgently than oxygen. Michael, who has subsisted on naught but a strict diet of denial and self delusion over the past four years, has never ONCE tried to deny how acutely obsessed he is with eating your pussy. But he wants the experience to drag.

He wants the whole damn thing to LAST.

Michael presses one finger into your pouring channel and mutters a curse under his breath.

His breath hitches and he licks the wet from the centre of your pussy, holding it upon his tongue like a drop of dew poised on a flower petal.

But it is too much.

It won’t do.

His tongue flattens powerfully against your clit, lapping. Circling. Owning. Michael sucks the pearl of flesh into his mouth, making you squirm and convulse against the hard table. You cry out as he adds another beringed digit to the blinding, white hot symphony of sensation.

An obscene wet noise fills the room. The stinging shame of it only serves to amplify your arousal.

“Listen to that,” Michael orders in a hot, sinister voice, so close to your flesh that the sibilance makes you squirm.

You died once. You remember the feeling. It was nothing like this.

And yet it was.

Because in this moment time ends. You end. Nothing matters- not the past and not whatever nebulous future Mallory hails from- nothing exists save for urgent pull of suction at your cunt. The zenith of pleasure like this, surely, can only be death, obliteration, blackness…

Your body, thankfully, knows otherwise.

“Let me see it…” Michael begs. “I want to feel it… I want to see you cum…”

The table squeaks as you buck smasmodically. You hold Michael’s head to your pussy, and gush all over his luscious, awe struck face, screaming his name as you oblige his request.

After a few moments of total, blanketing stillness, Michael dives to go at it again. It takes all your strength to gain his attention and pull him back.

“No, Michael, please fuck me now,” you insist. “We have things to do today.”

Things to do today…

‘Things’. Things like turning back time and saving the world by severing your immortal souls from the flow of its existence. Things.

Michael looks as though you have punched him. You are pretty sure- though it seems absurd- that the rubified pillow of his bottom lip quivers.

“My love, we will have all of eternity to… erm, indulge ourselves,” you say gently.

Michael stares at you with a look of such sorrow that it makes your heart ripple with regret.

You are about to relent, when, quite suddenly, the expression is shuttered and replaced by lust. And, it must be said, annoyance.

Perhaps, as a result of this annoyance, and in retaliation for your gall to deny the pampered Prince of Hell anything, Michael proceeds to push you onto the bed and fuck you with an intensity that borders on brutality.

Your pussy is invaded by warm, relentless, strokes. The ravening passion with which Michael takes you, the way he looks into your eyes and marks your skin by turns with bites and feathering kisses, steals the breath from your lungs. You gasp as you stare up at this god whose artfully applied eye make up has begun to smudge and run with sweat, but who is made only the more beautiful by this disarrangement of perfection.

You are reminded of more innocent, if not simpler, times, of rolling around with a younger, golden curled Michael, of getting your ass wet in grass that was jeweled with night dew, and breathing in the stars as he fucked you. Back then, Michael had not yet learned to control himself. You had only to kiss him, and cup his hard on, sometimes, to feel a warm stain spreading through denim. He would look at you from under his lavish sweep of lashes and redden exuisitely. Only firm kissing would stop his shy string of apologies.

You are reminded of the disbelief in Michael’s eyes whenever you licked his cock. And the sweet sound of his sleeping breath as it mingled with the harsher tambour of motel air conditioners.      

You are reminded of holding hands.

Driving for hours.

Looking at paintings.

Riding roller coasters.

You are reminded of the night Satanists went over your dead body to take him.

The night they stole him from you.

You buck your hips against Michael’s with a violent passion.

For a moment, his movements are suffused in surprise, but he does not stop. Michael fucks and fucks. You bite his shoulder and it makes him gasp. His face is crumpled with what you can only imagine is very practiced endurance. Slippery with sweat is what you both are, moving as one convulsing mass, making the hellish bed creak.

Michael is straining- every moment, straining- not to spend, even as the pleasure builds and fills and fulfills. His right hand finds yours. Fingers intertwine.

The inside of your body squeezes him possessively.

‘Mine,’ you think.

You have never heard a sound like what comes out of Michael’s mouth.

It is the sound of his being becoming fragmented.

Because when Michael Langdon is inside you, it restores him to his truest and most vulnerable state. He feels at once wet with his own birth and dying the most achingly drawn out death that any creature has ever died.  

You lean forward and lick at Michael’s lips until his eyes widen and the pillows of his lips part in surrender. Supremacy gives way to desperate jerking, barred teeth, an agonized wail.

“You’re mine,” you breathe against the shell of his ear.

“Yes!” shouts Michael, bucking his hips in agreement.

This sends you both over, plummeting into the transcendent moment of rapture with mutual helplessness. He spills within you, and your cunt wrings his cock for every last drop.

Afterwards, you lie breathing side by side as, slowly, the Kingdom of Hell glimmers back into existence.

Candle light illuminates Michael’s sweat slick nakedness. He is glowing. Golden. The sight is unparalleled by anything. It is with a very heavy heart that you rise from this wet, shambolic bed.

You walk to the wardrobe and find it predictably well stocked with sexy anime villain finery. You pick out the **simplest** thing you can find, which happens to be an ivory dress. It is rather beautiful, with a plain bodice beneath a spider web-thin fissue and a flowing skirt whose bottom is beset with a pattern of seed pearls.

“Trust you to pick out the most angelic looking thing in the pile…” comes Michael’s voice from the bed.

There is, despite what has recently passed between you, a note of reticence and melancholy in his demeanor. You can’t quite articulate what, but SOMETHING is off. For all his languid, Langdon-esque arrogance, Michael is churning something over inside. You credit the mission ahead of him. Today, Michael will face down his apocalypse.

Your poor Love worked for so long to make the end of the world a reality. And now he is being asked to dismantle his life’s work.

How painful that must be for him…

For a moment, a dark, evanescent fear flows through you.

How long before he resents you?

How long before he begins to detest the contrast of your innocence against his own innate evil?

How long before Michael tires of the creature who cost him the death of the world?

“I can wear something else,” you say, stupidly, and reach for a garment you think might be more HIS speed, a studded burgundy gown with a leather bustier replete with a metalwork choker.

“No,” says Michael. “The white suits you, and the occasion, perfectly.” 

You nod.

The air is thick with unsaid things.           

“Michael,” you venture. “I hope you know that you don’t have to-” you feel traitorous to the human race for saying these words out loud. “What I mean to say is, I would obviously PREFER it if the world were restored to its pre-apocalyptic state… but if something were to happen, or even if you changed your mind- I mean, I will love you no matter what. My love for you, it’s not contingent upon…” You stop when you meet Michael’s gaze. He is staring at you like his stomach has been bludgeoned by a canon ball.

“If you say that again, Y/n,” he says quietly. “I will chain you to this bed and you will be my prisoner from now until I uncover a magic that will bind my very soul to yours.”

“O Michael, I-”

“Be. Careful. What. You. Say.”

You beam at him.

“Now stop blithering and help me pick out a cravat,” orders Michael in his most ‘Outpost’ voice.

 As you run your hand over the line of neatly hanging silk cravats, ranging from smoke gray to blacks to browns and burgundies and jewel toned reds, you can’t help asking him, when, over the course of the past four years, he decided to dispense with T-shirts, sweaters and other more average fare.

“I am nothing like normal, Y/n, and I need to dress the part,” Michael says, raising himself up and flipping his sweat matted hair back with a haughty flourish.  

You smile at him. “And the cosmetics?”

Michael touches his face self consciously. “You don’t like it?”

“I LOVE it,” you assure him, then pause and hesitate a moment before asking, “Did Ms. Meade give you the idea? Did the two of you raid Sephora in preparation for the apocalypse?”

Michael frowns. “No.”

Silence descends. You regret mentioning Ms. Meade.

“You know,” says Michael at last, “I would love to pay the Satanists a visit before we get on with our daughter’s plans today. Her and LaVey, and Samantha... It is a matter of the simplest magic to discover their hiding place. I would be back before breakfast. A bloodbath is just what I need to clear my mind…”

“No,” you say unequivocally. “We have more important tasks ahead of us.”

“You would deny me the joy of punishing those who- who,” he closes his eyes and breathes in before finishing, “who murdered you. While I sat in the bath like a moron.”

“If you care for me at all, Michael, you will honour this one promise.”

‘If you care for me at all’, you can admit, is a touch manipulative. A spikey little dagger in his tender, world destroying heart. Perhaps this god forsaken place is beginning to work on you a bit…

Michael is silent. Rueful. You can feel his remorse penetrate the sex sodden air. And you are sorry, even though, by all logic, you shouldn’t be. Not really. 

“Speaking of baths,” you say, walking to him and touching his beautiful, miserable, make up streaked cheek, “I think I could use one.”

You walk your naked self to the en suite bathroom, feeling his eyes scorch the back of you all the way there. At the door, you look back and give Michael a ‘well, what are you waiting for?’ look before heading in.

Michael stares after you. Though he is the unwitting product of hell, he considers himself BLESSED to see that ass shake as you stride away. He remains, as ever, utterly confounded by this blessing. Even when you are gone from his life, Michael knows, he will still feel it. The baffling gift of there having once been a time when you loved him will burn every day like the hottest vengeance heaven ever visited.

Perhaps, he considers, he is not as brilliant as Miriam Meade always told him he was. Because he is still struggling to understand how it even happened… Once upon a time, the evil that hatched Michael had glorious plans for him. Then, you arrived, and the world’s fiery end was transformed from his ultimate purpose to just another element of scenery framing the epic that was FIRST LOVE.

Michael does not move. Even when he hears the bath start to run. Even as he imagines warm, perfumed water cascading down your delectable, supine form.

Minutes pass.

He is not made of brimstone.

Michael rises from the bed and continues to the steaming bath.

It takes another two hours to get properly ‘clean’.

Somewhere during those two hours you decide, once and for all, that it will take more than mere conflicting values for Michael Langdon to fling you from his presence.

………………………………………….

 

The morning that Mallory is to perform ’Absolutum Infinitum’ finds her under slept and full of doubt.

“I can’t believe it’s finally going to end,” she tells her friends Myrtle and Nan, over a sumptuous spread of breakfast foods (Myrtle has ordered up the entire French pastry canon, a mountain of perfectly smooth Julia Child-worthy omelettes, a cornucopia of fruit and, for some reason, a tiny winter village made from rolled marzipan). “I almost can’t even let myself believe it…”

“How weary you must be, Darling,” says Myrtle sympathetically. She pours a heaping spoonful of sugar into her cappuccino and stirs.

They occupy the far end of an ostentatiously long banquet table in one of the five dining halls of the red castle. Myrtle is in her ‘morning robe’, a sun orange concoction that ‘dear Elsa’ Schiaparelli designed to match her hair.

“I keep thinking that I am going to wake up in some crappier timeline. Or that I’ve lost track of them completely… Or that I am going to screw some tiny thing up and everything will get reset.”

“And your infernal Father isn’t making it easy for you,” Myrtle can’t resist adding.

Mallory sighs. “I miss my sisters. I miss them so much…”

“There, there, sweet girl, you’ll be able to see Cordelia and the rest the Coven again once you’ve performed your spell. Didn’t you say you were able to freely travel to any time you wish?”

Mallory smiles. “No, Myrtle, not those sisters. Although I miss them too. I was talking about my ACTUAL sisters.” Mallory feels guilty for a moment. Not only because she is invoking a gaggle of sisters that Myrtle is less invested in than her precious Coven, but because she knows that the flame haired Witch would give anything to possess such a power. “I promise you, Myrtle, I will make sure that you see Cordelia again. You too, Nan. I promise”

Myrtle makes a soft, vulnerable sound, then shakes her head a little as if to dispel a dangerous shard of hope. “I was unaware,” she says, “that you have siblings.”

Mallory smiles. “I have six sisters as of the moment I departed my own time.”

Myrtle’s eyebrows raise. “How busy your parents have been…”

“Well,” counters Mallory, “considering that some of my sisters were born a century apart, I’d say that my mother and father have been rather measured in their approach to procreation…”

“All female, you say?”

Mallory nods.

“That is good.”

“Their daughters will be legion!” exclaims Nan happily, tucking into a pomegranate and passion fruit parfait.

With the accumulated years of eleven trips backward in time, it has been decades since Mallory has seen her family of origin.

But, to them, only moments.

Mallory can do to time what a diamond does to a beam of light, split it into a thousand blinding fragments… But after today, she vows, she never will again. O sure, she will VISIT the past every now and again, but never, never, never, NEVER will she alter a thing…

Mallory’s reverie is interrupted by the arrival of her parents.

Her Father is uncharacteristically rumpled and stubbled. Her mother looks like a leaf that’s been flying around the sidewalk in a particularly robust Autumn gale.

They fucked all night, Mallory is horrified to deduce.

It’s the tell-tale bags under their eyes and the way they carry themselves- you don’t have to be a see-er to see that shit.

Ew.

“So considerate of the Prince of Darkness to join us, at last,” says Myrtle scathingly. “I suppose shaving was a step to far into the arena of presentability.”

Michael’s eyes narrow. “What’s this?” he demands. “Myrtle Snow? You are supposed to be stewing in your personal Hell, not presiding over my dining room!”

Myrtle spreads a generous dollop of clotted cream onto a croissant and brings it to her mouth for a dainty bite. “Yes, the décor leaves much to be desired,” she says. “But the food is top notch.”   

Michael is about to utter some or other offense but is stopped by his Daughter. “I invited her, Dad. Myrtle’s my friend. She’s been my friend for a long time. I don’t think I would have been able to take waiting for you to take your sweet time wooing Mom back without her.”

Michael frowns. Guilt nags at him again. “Well tell her to keep her judgements to herself.”

“O Dear,” says Myrtle, in her lightest and, therefore, most damning tone, “Our Lord of polyester cravats can’t take the HEAT. How ironic. Has anyone told him he’s the spawn of Satan? Or should I say ‘pawn’.”

“THEY ARE NOT POLYESTER,” Michael chokes out.

Myrtle blinks. “Acrylic?”

This chafes Michael to an unreasonable degree. He pulls off the black cravat he so meticulously fastened (all by himself!) earlier that morning and holds it up for inspection. “I’ll have you know that the soul of Coco Chanel sewed this herself, in exchange for an hour’s respite from her personal Hell working twenty-four hours a day in a workhouse run by the quote- unquote ‘Bolsheviks’.”

“COCO!” Myrtle gasps and clutches her voluminous orange collar.

“I arranged to have her lover, Hans Günther von Dincklage, present for the occasion,” Michael adds with a shit eating sneer. “Of course, he was having his skin peeled off at the time.”

“Michael!” you say exasperatedly. By now it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that your boyfriend utilizes a dead couturier as forced labor to help him look like a hot, rich vampire circa the mid 1800s. And yet…

Michael turns to you with wide, innocent eyes. “The man was a Nazi!”

“You’re not fit to wear a stitch wrought by the divine Gabrielle,” declares Myrtle. “You’re nothing but a slithering, Gucci clad ass stain!”

“And you are nothing but a crusty, carrot topped cunt!” Michael fires back.

“You WISH you had a carrot cunt like mine!” shouts Myrtle. “All you have is a baby carrot and a pair of dangling raisons. Darling, you need Divination to find your own dick.”

“NO, I DON’T, YOU WILTED CRONE!”

He doesn’t, you think. He really doesn’t. Michael actually has a really, rather large and impressive-

“SHE MEANS METAPHORICALLY!” Nan shouts in your direction.

Everyone in the room freezes and turns to look at you. Your face turns scarlet, your mouth drops open and you gape at nan.

“What?” asks the clairvoyant Witch. “You were thinking really loud.” She gestures to Michael, “About his dick. And how big it is.”

Michael, you can’t help but notice, is smiling rather smugly at this, and glaring at Myrtle.

“Also,” adds Nan with a little furrow of confusion, “both ‘cunt’ and ‘crone’ are compliments to him.”

“Not when they are applied to her!” says Michael, pointing at Myrtle.

“I spit upon your compliments,” says the flame haired Witch.

“I spit upon Cordelia Goode’s grave!”

At that, Myrtle rises from the table. “YOU ARE NOT FIT TO SPEAK HER NAME, YOU ODIOUS, MOTHERLESS LITTLE BOY!”   

“Enough of this! Damn it! Both of you!” you shout.

Both Michael and Myrtle are looking invigorated in the worst possible way.

“Ms. Snow,” you say, turning to her politely. “My name is Y/n. I am Mallory’s Mother. It is very nice to meet you.” The words come out as though you have been affably introducing yourself as ‘Mallory’s Mother’ for years. It feels warm and good in a way that startles you a little.

“You’re one of Cordelia’s new girls,” says Myrtle, smoothing back her hair and pointedly ignoring Michael.

“She is not one of ‘Cordelia’s Girls’,” objects the Antichrist. “Y/n is my-”

“The adults are talking, Dear,” Myrtle tells him dismissively.

The old hellish malevolence flashes in Michael’s eyes as he regards Myrtle. “O, I know just the place I am going to put you when this is all done,” he says ominously. “Not even the worms will be able to feast on you where I’m-”

You place a gentle hand on Michael’s. “Calm yourself, my Love,” you whisper, and press a kiss to the curve of his cheek, in full view of everyone, and to the astonishment of all but Mallory.  

The tension in Michael’s coiled muscles eases visibly. He takes a breath and his bloodlust seems to pass along like a lightning filled cloud. His eyes turn soft when he looks at you.

As Myrtle watches you and Michael, her expression changes, slowly, as though a question is being answered, and the answer so simple, so unequivocal, so potently final. She swallows back her wonder. “Once we’ve eaten. Why don’t we get Mallory ready to spin back the clock on the mortal realm, hmm?”

You have breakfast. As a group. It is tense. But not torturous.

Afterwards, you all head to the ‘throne room’ to begin Mallory’s ritual.

Michael purposefully lingers back. Just before Nan exits, he takes her aside.

Michael is about to speak, in very hushed tones, when Nan interrupts.

“I know,” she says. “I already know what you’re going to ask me. I’ll do it.”

“It wasn’t going to be an interrogative,” says Michael, raising an eyebrow. He is unaccountably charmed by this plucky little Witch.

“I’ll do it anyway.”

“Good,” says the Prince of Hell. “Will you know how to find them?”

Nan nods.

“Will you remember where I told you to go?”

Nan nods.

“O and tell Papa he’ll be able to take you on that vacation soon.”

“Two vacations,” Nan says. “One to Tartarus. One to Toronto.”

Michael knows that he should want to rip her apart, this tiny, lovely soul, for having the gumption to be happy in love, when he is about to be lonesome and miserable.

But he doesn’t.

“Two it is, Nan,” he says instead. “Two it is.”

…………………………………………….

Her faith is being tested.

That is the only way Miriam Meade can think to explain it.

She is a Satanic version of Job.

“Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little?” asks her best friend Madeline, puffing on a cigarette. From the adjacent parlour, comes the sound of the Wurlitzer. LaVey is at it again, entirely insensible to anyone’s tenuous hold on sanity.

“The more time passes,” says Miriam dramatically, “the more certain I become.”

Madeline rolls her eyes. Ever since Michael Langdon began ‘attaching’ to her, Miriam has harboured delusions of grandeur. Now that she is officially out of favour, it has gotten worse. All she does is complain about ‘that Witch Whore’ and ‘raging teenaged hormones’ and the fact that ‘a man’s entire being is nothing but an iron lung for his penis’. 

Now the bitch thinks she’s Job.

“It’s only been a couple of days, Miriam. Take a chill pill, shoot up some heroin, something…”

“No,” says Meade. “You go ahead and enjoy. I want be fresh as a daisy in case Michael shows up.”

‘Maybe I’M Job…’ thinks Madeline.

Madeline is beginning to regret coming here. She was sitting pretty at Outpost 5 before the Thelma to her Louise, Miriam fucking Meade called with her emergency.

So, she drove across the nuclear wasteland, and gathered up the old gang.

Now she’s stuck here in a decrepit, one-bathroom bunker- that’s not even one of the official ones- having to listen to the bald man play his horrendous carnival music and wax about Ayn Rand and Social Darwinism. She would very much like to impale his forehead with a fork, but Meade claims that ‘Anton is IN with Satan’, even if he is ‘out’ with Michael… which, wtf? Madeline begs to differ. To her mind, Michael and Satan have always been the same damn thing, the former being simply a physical manifestation of the latter.

But that’s neither here nor there.

The question is: how will this thing end? With every hour, the likelihood of Michael Langdon ‘fucking himself out’ and crawling back to his surrogate mother grows more and more unlikely, as does the notion that Madeline will ever get to go back to the lazy-boy replete, middle class life that she paid for with her soul.

“Let’s be reasonable about this,” she tells her friend. “Maybe if you go back to Outpost 3 and BEG forgiveness, the kid’ll find it in his heart to take your sinning self back…”

Miriam’s eyes shimmer with emotion. She WANTS to believe that is impossible. She wants to believe that the love of pussy is fleeting, but a man-child’s love for his ‘Devil Mama’ is forever.

“Maybe you could apologize to the girl, too,” offers Madeline. “She’s probably too well-fucked, at this point, to hold any permanent grudge.”

Miriam gives this distasteful idea her consideration. It would be pure humiliation to have to grovel to that traitorous little hussy. But what other course is there? Miriam loves her beautiful boy with all of her heart and to live torn from him another day is more than she can bear, even if it is her Lord testing her.

“It’s too risky…” she says. “She’s cast a spell on him.”

“Rumor has it that there’s a Voodoo Witch camping out in Outpost 3, maybe she could help you with your problem.”

“And what exactly do I have to bargain with?” asks Miriam hopelessly.

Madeline grimaces. How did she go from a beautiful three-story FUCKING PALACE on a cul du sac to sharing gopher hole the C team?

“The Miriam Meade I know wouldn’t give up that easily,” says Madeline, putting her cigarette out into a slice of Dutch apple pie that Samantha left out specifically for Anton. “The Miriam Meade I know would fight to the teeth for someone she loves. The Miriam Meade I know once burned a bitch alive for pointing out that Michael was wearing heels.”

Miriam looks up at her, galvanized. “Lifts,” she corrects, “But yeah…”

“The Miriam Meade I know once used Michael as a decoy to rob a petting zoo.”

Miriam takes a deep breath. “You’re right, Madeline. I did.” Nor does she regret it. Michael was having a grand old time petting that diary cow while she smuggled four goats into her van.  

The Wurlitzer stops. 

Miriam is brimming with purpose once more. The energy of renewed confidence seems to coat her body like new skin. She beams at her friend.

How smart of her, Miriam thinks, to call on Madeline in her hour of need. This has been her ride or die Bitch through thick and thin, from the days of Satanic Church basement potlucks to their high roller turn in the Langdon era, when they bossed around the most esteemed members of the Illuminati and had piping hot threesomes with Ryan Reynolds.

Just then, the alarm sounds.

There is an intruder on the premises.

“What the fuck?” says Madeline as their makeshift kitchen is filled with a billowing curtain of smoke that gives way to the shape of a small, brown haired girl in a cape.

“Who are you?” demands Meade.

“Nan,” says the girl. She grins in a way that can only be called ‘devilish’ in nature. “I am an Emissary from Hell sent here by Michael Langdon himself.”

Immediately, the women, along with Anton Lavey and Samantha, who arrived at some point during the ruckus, fall to their knees.

“We are in the presence of an instrument of our Lord’s will…” whispers LaVey, deferentially.

Nan raises an eyebrow. “Instrument? Bitch please, I do what I want.” 

“What is your will, O fated Emissary?” he asks, bowing his head.

“Michael tells me that you betrayed him.”

There is a moment of silence followed by a symphony of protest.

“SILENCE!” booms Nan in a voice amplified by demonic resonance. “Your punishment will be dealt in accordance to the severity of your crime.” The Satanists tremble. Nan likes this part of her job… “You LIED to the son of Satan. And for that you shall be subjected to a lifetime of torment.”

Madeline raises her head. “In hell?” she asks optimistically.

Nan smiles. “You’d like that wouldn’t you? You’d like to roast in the hottest circle, and spend eternity in the presence of your Lord…” She leans in and sneers. “But you won’t.”

“W-w-where will we be taken?” Meade asks fearfully.

Nan folds her arms over her chest.

“You will die in a place tantalizingly close to the fires of Hell, without ever being able to set foot there.”

“W-w-where is that?” asks LaVey, swallowing.

Nan heads to the table and uncovers a cloth to reveal three quarters of a delicious looking Dutch apple pie. “They call it the ‘Murder House’,” she says, casually picking at the pie.

“B-but that’s the Hell Mouth where Michael Langdon was born,” says Meade. “If we die there, we’ll never be able to get out. I’ll never see my boy again!”

“That’s the idea,” says Nan, chewing. She wrinkles her nose. “This pie needs cinnamon. You guys can’t do anything right, can you?”

“B-but w-wasn’t the house destroyed when the bombs fell?” asks Madeline.

“Yes,” replies Nan brightly, “but haven’t you heard? They are about to UNfall. No human being alive will even remember that the apocalypse happened. Except you. Isn’t that tragic?”

There follows much shrieking and bawling and bargaining. If these people didn’t regularly carve up international aid workers, Nan would feel sorry for them.

Some hours later, the grudging occupants of Murder House are joined by four brand spanking new souls.  

……………………………………………….

The intricate alabaster and stucco work of the interior of the throne room emulates the snow-white lattice of heaven. Many say that it was this bit of anarchy that cost the chief Satanic architect his immortal freedom. The room projects into a courtyard where rows of filigreed columns circle pools and fountains. There, the marble colonnades, gilded by starlight, glow with the softest pink, exuisitely decorated with medallions, flowers, and horned devils.

It is in one of these shimmering pools that Mallory floats, Ophelia like, with a halo of reflected stars blinking in and out of being around her. In her right hand, she holds a long, golden strand of Michael’s hair, in her left, she holds one plucked from your own head. She has never more resembled an angel, you think, then she does now, floating there.

It was with a tear tracked face and a leaden heart that you hugged your dear friend, your daughter from the future, goodbye.

The next time you see her, Mallory will be a baby in your arms.

Your chest tightens painfully.

You would not like her to go…

To have her leave, and to know that it will be years before you are together again, seems to violate some primal and vulnerable directive that you never knew was inside of you.

You have had years as friends, and in all that time you never knew her.

If only you could have a few more days…

A few more days in the presence of your darling daughter.

You are proud of the fact that Mallory is able to wield her craft like no other. But you are also her Mother, strange as that might be, and your foremost instinct is to see her safe, and happy.

“In a moment,” Myrtle Snow informs you and Michael, as though it were the most casual thing in the world, “I will place both of you under a sleeping spell. When you wake up, your souls will be severed from the mortal realm, and the monstrous apocalypse will have been a bad dream.”

The red-haired Witch leans in to whisper to Michael, “Except that Y/n will be back with her sisters at Robichaux’s, and you will be left with only me and your minions for company.”

Michael’s mouth is so dry, and his heart so thoroughly shattered that he cannot even muster a scathing retort.  

 “Balneum infinitum. Dona salui conductus,” Mallory begins to chant. “Balneum infinitum. Dona salui conductus. Balneum infinitum. Dona salui conductus.”

The water in the pool grows alarmingly dark and filmy, swirling around Mallory and swallowing her up. You clutch Michael’s hand. He is beside you, still as a statue. There are tears on his face as well.

Then she disappears. You are about to scream when you hear the melodious sound of Myrtle Snow’s voice behind you. “Somnum.”

‘Somnum’.

‘Sleep.’

You do.

Your mind catches and spins. Consciousness dissolves like the grainy residue of coffee at the bottom of a cup that is getting stirred and swirled up.

‘Michael’ you think. That is the word is engraved in your soul. ‘Michael…’ It means… something… wonderful.

Your mind wants to sleep but the word ‘Michael’ is billowing it up from its would be dream like smoke billowing up from a forest fire.

‘Michael’ you think. A beloved inferno. Hotter than the sun. A sun… A son… No, no. A daughter… You have a daughter…

‘Michael’.

You sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your lovely comments and for continuing to bear with me!!
> 
> I hope this chapter was not too short or unsatisfying.
> 
> ps. Yep Coco Chanel DID have a Nazi officer lover. And she really, really hated unions. So that is why her personal hell is the thing that it is.
> 
> The next chapter will likely be the last, but it will also have an epilogue.  
> I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Lot's of love xo


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!  
> This chapter was too long to put up in one go so I am posting two chapters at once.  
> The epilogue will be a separate chapter.  
> See you on the other side!!

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.”

 

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

……………………………………………….

 

Sunday finds chaos reigning in a milk white house in the heart of New Orleans.

The Supremes’ inner circle are in, what is best described in colloquial terms as, ‘all in a tizzy’, over what is either a potential Coven PR disaster, or an outright declaration of war.

“Yes, yes, I understand that it is a ‘masterpiece’,” says Cordelia frustratedly pacing the sparse elegance of Robichaux’s main parlour. “But what is it doing HERE?”

The breathless Warlock on the other end of the phone call is muttering something about Kenneth Clark.

“Yes, Crispin, I UNDERSTAND. Yes, I can vouch for the authenticity. Yes, yes, I am sure. I understand that, but HOW did it get here? Our headquarters are protected by barrier spells. We utilize the Sacred Chalice and several veil wards to protect our house. The magic that managed to break through all of that…” she pauses for effect, “is powerful in the extreme and very possibly malignant in nature. To say nothing of our reputation if the public finds out that we are in possession of this thing. The one hanging in the Boston Museum is a fake, which they will discover it soon enough, then what next? Pitchforks? A criminal trial? More bad press.”

“This is sooooo not a good look for the Coven…” mumbles Queenie, nervously fingering the twin strands of Polynesian pearls that hang about her neck. “They’ll say we pay our bills by trafficking in this Thomas Crown Affair shit.”

“What if it’s one of those mouth breathers from Hawthorne’s,” says Zoe. “Maybe this is some kind of prank, to get us back for their building burning down.”

“One of them probably did this to get my attention,” says Madison Montgomery, taking a long drag off the cigarette dangling between her beringed fingers. “Either way we are royally FUCKED. I, for one, did not spend the past year of my life working retail in hell just to end up somebody’s prison bitch.”

“You wish,” says Queenie.

It was Nan, now a proud emissary of the underworld, who unceremoniously deposited Madison Montgomery on Robichaux’s doorstep a week ago. When questioned about how this was possible, Nan muttered something vague about ‘good behaviour’ and departed in a column of smoke.

The Supreme makes a gesture to shush them and Madison scowls at her frenemy.

“No, it most certainly was not one of my girls!” Cordelia says affronted. “I have personally interviewed everyone under this roof, Crispin. If one of them was a cat burglar, I would know.”

“Are we all sure that Fiona’s dead?” whispers Zoe. “Because that painting has, I dunno… a real aura of parental drama…”

Queenie nods. “And if Satan is sending Madison back like she’s a bad sandwich at a deli, maybe another-”

Cordelia brings a silencing finger to her lips.

“Yes, I understand,” the Supreme says into the phone. “U huh. NO, I am not jumping to conclusions, Crispin. This Coven has gone through too much for us to sleep on what amounts to an invasion of our sanctum. I will make those provisions and get back to you. And whatever you do, do NOT let Ariel Augustus know of this conversation. The last thing I need is that simpering prick gossiping or poking his nose into our internal affairs. Is that understood? Good.”

A hush descends on the group when Cordelia hangs up.

“Girls, that was our lawyer,” she announces. “He says that if we report the painting’s presence here, the onus would be on the law to prove that we had anything to do with stealing it. But police aren’t known for their understanding toward the supernaturally inclined.” Cordelia circles the room before dropping next to Zoe on the magnolia coloured sofa. “The bigger, more important question,” she continues, “is: who brought it in here? And why? Either someone is attempting to frame the Coven for the theft, or there are more sinister forces afoot.”

As if on cue, every head in the room swivels toward the cloud of radiance that is causing them so much head ache.

Last night, that wall was occupied by a blank space. The portrait of Loretta Carlov famed ringleted beauty, and former Supreme, has been out for cleaning and is not due back before Wednesday. But hanging in its place, since this morning when Zoe came to greet her gaggle of girls for transmutation classes, is Rembrandt Van Rijn’s depiction of the Prodigal Son crouching before his Father and being received with unconditional forgiveness.

The mysterious materialization of the painting on the grounds of Robichaux’s Academy confirms that which Cordelia Goode has sensed in her waters for the past week.

There has been a redistribution of energy.

Cordelia can’t quite put her finger on WHAT has occurred, or even if it is good or bad. She has the feeling of having gone to sleep at night and woken up in a different world. Like everything mortal has been swallowed up and spit out again by something divine.

The most obvious indication of this was, of course, the reintroduction of Madison Montgomery into the mortal realm.

This miracle was followed, two days later, by the arrival of a bedraggled and disoriented Misty Day.

The former made the surprising decision to resume her place at Robichaux’s, perhaps, in some noble-ish effort to atone for her past behaviour.

The latter drove away into the night with- who else? - Stevie.

Those whose immortal souls are property of Hell are lost forever: it was a law once thought incontrovertible. But now, it seems, that has changed.

The happiness that Cordelia feels is a stain that blots out reason and questioning.   

Perhaps it should frighten her more. Don’t gift horses’ mouths ought always to be examined?

And yet….

And yet.

“It’s pretty,” Queenie says of the painting, almost apologetically.

“It’s valued at three hundred million dollars, so it fucking better be,” says Madison.

At that moment the door opens, and the room is filled with a presence whose luminosity nearly obscures the luminous thing on the wall. “I prefer Vermeer,” says the intruder, in a soft, familiar voice, crisp and clear like flecks of gold in bubbling spring water.

The Coven turns to look at the speaker.

Cordelia is felled to her knees by the flame haired sight of Myrtle snow.

“M-m-myrtle?” says the Supreme, sounding very much like the young girl she was when she first walked through Robichaux’s hallowed halls.

“You cannot begin to imagine how I have missed you, Little Bird,” says the Older Witch, her eyes shimmering.

Cordelia runs to her. They embrace.

The reunion is a sweet one, the first flourish of disbelieving joy lasting untold hours.  

Myrtle tells her Coven the story of her time in Hell. She does not reveal EVERYTHING, mind you. Her newfound ability to walk to and from the living and unliving realms is credited to a wise Witch by the name of Mallory Langdon. 

Then, at around midnight, with some reluctance, after an impromptu supper of oysters, quail eggs and gremolata, Myrtle reveals the true ‘purpose’ of her visit to Robichaux’s. She reveals that she, like their beloved Nan, is now an Emissary of Hell.

“I’m here for that,” she says, indicating the Rembrandt.

“Where the hell did it come from?” asks Madison.

“You just answered your own question there, Dear.”

Cordelia’s eyes widen. She recoils from the object like a spooked feline. “Dear lord, what is it doing here? I have laid my hands on it dozens of times... I have never come across anything that so thoroughly resists my magic. How was I to know I was touching an artefact tainted by hell?” She looks down at her own hands in disgust.

Perhaps, thinks Myrtle, she should be pierced by this. After all, she too is, an ‘artefact tainted by Hell.’

“The timeline has been warded to protect discovery of tampering,” she explains gently. “Elements of the world, such as why two authentic copies of this painting exist, will be ever obscured to you, Little Bird. I am so sorry.”

Cordelia frowns. She does not love hearing that.

Cordelia’s age and maturity at the moment she ascended to ‘Supreme’-hood has been heralded by many of her generation as a great boon to the Coven. Cordelia’s may be, arguably, a ‘riches to riches’ story, her own mother having previously held the title, but for much of her brief reign, Cordelia has been razor focused on differentiating herself from Fiona. Likewise, Cordelia cultivates an image in stark contrast to the many Supremes who were revealed to themselves and others too young, and subsequently, groomed with a savage combination of adoration and indulgence. She was never one of those young idiots who believe that they and they alone speak nature’s secret language… Never….

But, despite these concerted efforts, there are times when the ‘Fiona’ in her comes out…

Like when she’s flexing her dick with the Warlocks at Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men.

Or when she bitch slaps Madison Montgomery. Cordelia now forgets why exactly that happened...

 And the Fiona thing inside her is stirring a little, now, too. Because hearing that there is a secret threading together the very fabric of her reality that she is to be BARRED from knowing… really, REALLY annoys Cordelia.

“Do you believe it is wise for me to be kept in the dark regarding the nature of this… of whatever is going on here?” she asks Myrtle with a crackling veneer of diplomacy.

Myrtle smiles. “You have a right to be indignant, Dear. I would be too.”

Cordelia laughs nervously. “Indignation is hardly the word…”

“You are in charge here, Dear. But others are in charge… elsewhere. To rail against this would be unbecoming.”

How grateful Myrtle is, how incandescently happy, to see her sweet girl… How to convince her that simply the wild, abandoned joy of being alive is enough? That ‘knowing’ is overrated?

“What I can do is assure you that this painting’s presence here is not meant to bring ill or harm upon any of you. Its presence here, when all is said and done, can be chalked it up to a laughably stupid, ill conceived, poorly judged, idiotic romantic gesture.”

Cordelia frowns. “Romantic gesture?”

“The painting is a gift,” says Myrtle softly.  

“I KNEW IT!” exclaims Madison, crossing her arms in a practiced charade of vexation. “One of those Pilgrim-cosplaying Hawthorne motherfuckers is INTO me!” 

“It is not for you!” snaps Myrtle, shaking her head at the presuming little ingenue. “It is for someone else. And it isn’t from a Warlock.”

“Is it meant for a member of the coven?” Cordelia asks, puzzled. “For one of MY girls?”

“Yes and no,” says Myrtle a little sadly. “It is for a girl who once held a place here.”

“Someone who has left us?” inquires Cordelia, casting her memory back to all the girls who have left Robichaux’s since her tenure as Headmistress.

“Did this Bitch die?” asks Madison, ever sensitive- more even than Cordelia - to fluctuations in the corporeal and non-corporeal order.

“Nothing so undignified and organic as dying, Dear,” says Myrtle.

Myrtle walks up to the painting, utters an incantation of Hellish origin and a tiny marking of ink becomes visible in the shadow space of the bottom left corner of the canvas.

‘For Y/n’,

it reads, in the unerringly sloppy cursive of a man-child. The Witches gasp.

 “Why don’t I remember this ‘Y/n’?” asks Cordelia.

“Y/n was here once, in another version of reality, but she elected to… edit herself out in post production, if you will.” Myrtle turns to her protégé. “You did love Y/n, Cordelia, just as you love all of your girls, and she adored you. She was clever and kind and devoted to the Coven, but Y/n had appalling taste in men, you see. Not that one can blame her. It is hardly an original affliction, given the overabundance of worthy women in this world, and the dearth of men to deserve them. Still, it must be said, Y/n left this realm for a man who never ceases to amaze with the sheer boundarylessness of his hate-ability. Just the fact that he managed to smuggle this painting here is a monument to how little thought he gives to the inconvenience, or really, the EXISTENCE, of others.”

Myrtle sighs. She has had, she would like to think, a uniquely varied and exciting life. She has met all manner of people. Sometimes, their values challenged her. She has tasted an unlikely friendship with a Vampire, broken artisanal bread with ghosts, and even spent a tenure in Hell, but she never known anyone who willfully shattered the accident of their own existence- until You.

For most people, there is some modicum of comfort in knowing that, even in death, they will be remembered by others.

After all, to live in memory is a species of immortality.

Myrtle looks about the room.

At Madison, the Chloe-clad phoenix who died and rose twice. She is heroic in her own way. Not that Myrtle would ever say it out loud.

At Zoe, a once confused, frightened girl, now a fully empowered woman.

At Queenie, who would remain a Queen by any other name. (Mallory once told Myrtle that the first Queenie she met died in a Hell Mouth in Los Angeles, only to be rescued by… him, then again slaughtered by… him.)    

You gave up the covenant of these brave, brilliant, stylish women for…

For Michael Langdon.

What a mad thing love is!

What a mystery!

What a bizarre and thoroughly unmerited gift!

What a strange disease!

“Perhaps, one day Y/n will come and reintroduce herself,” says Myrtle.

“And the painting?” asks Queenie, gazing upon it as though for the first time.

“The little blonde maggot stole it for her,” replies Myrtle, “and as much as it aggrieves me to admit, I do work for him. I must see it to her. She’ll keep it, I suppose. There is already a painting like this in this timeline, which makes this one extra.”

Michael is dumber than a box of wigs, thinks Myrtle. “It is really impossible to overemphasize how truly under-thought this gifting was…” she says with disdain. “But I suppose if it weren’t for this, I would not have been able to come visit you as soon as I have.”

At dawn, Myrtle feels a tremendous pulse of sadness as she departs Robichaux’s, Rembrandt in tow. A mist hovers over the back lawn, from which irises and daylilies appear as eager to take flight as flocks of birds. Myrtle would so love to linger in all of this morning glory.

Instead, the ground opens and sucks her down from this good, green realm with gobsmacking force.

…………….

 

At night, Michael weeps.

In Hell, it is always night.

The longer he lives- and his lifetime is fated to be eons- the further he will be from you. A wave of nausea grips him with the realization that every second, and every breath, and every solitary experience brings him further from the love of his life.   

That Michael will never see you again is a condition too harrowing to be swallowed up all at once. Instead, it is doled out in piece meal moments of horror.

Michael sees the bed upon which once, like a night flowering orchid, you unfurled at the height of your pleasure. But the bed will never again be full of you.

The sheets are already surrendering your scent to the intruding air.

And this makes Michael fall to the ground, drenched in grief so powerful that he curls into a semblance of a fetus and shakes uncontrollably. When his strength returns, he crawls to the bed and hoists himself onto it. He sobs into its desolate plane, and inhales deeply, every cell in his body longing for the things he cannot have.

Later, Michael encounters his own face reflected in one of the courtyard pools. Miriam Meade once said that this beautiful face heralded to the world that Michael was something ‘very special indeed’. But that face there in the water is just a mask overlaying bone. Michael is a bare fact. He exists. Other than that, he may as well be featureless.       

Without face. Without love. Without voice. Without soul. Without world.

The world, O yes, that is dead now, thinks Michael. It was never dead before. But it is now. What irony.

When he goes four hours without vomiting on himself, Myrtle Snow calls it a success story.

Michael is unwashed, unshaven, starving, dehydrated, probably reeking, and out of his mind with despair.

The demons start to pity him.

Phobos attempts to pour water down the Dark Lord’s throat. Deimos drags a comb through filthy, matted hair and shakes his head. Abraxas spoon feeds him porridge.

Michael is barely conscious of these ministrations. Somewhere in the swamp of his mind, he knows that he must not die, for if he dies, all of his Daughter’s efforts will have been in vain. Another Antichrist will supplant him, and the loathsome, beautiful world you inhabit will be burned with you inside of it.

Pain spikes through him. Bodily pain. Angry red radiating from every pore. Sharper than anything he has ever known.

But there is also blue pain. Dull pain. Ebbing with regret. Swelling over him, constricting his throat.

Michael has lost track of days. This is how Hell is supposed to work, for OTHER PEOPLE.

By the time Michael has changed his mind, it is way past too late.

Mallory’s magic bars him from entering your time stream.

He tries Tempus Infinitum once. It is a desperate lark. It does not work. Michael is trapped in Hell.

“But at least you’re cleaner now,” quips Myrtle, when she spots him crawling out of the pool like a blighted amphibian.

Then, Myrtle too begins to feel pity. That is how wretched Michael is.

You are moving through your worldly realm, slicing time like a blade dancing with light. And Michael is pinned to infinity.

To continue existing in this state is cruel beyond all sense. Yet live he must. Even as the shards of his heart lie all around him like shattered glass, fit to slice flesh, Michael must live.

By day number who-the-fuck-knows he isn’t even protesting the pestering of Myrtle.

“You know what helped me after Egon Von Furstenberg left me?” the red headed Witch asks, stirring honey into a mug of tea and passing it to him as though he were a child.

Michael says nothing.

She goes on, unprompted. “Nothing,” she says. “Nothing helped.”

“How did you get over it?” asks Phobos, who sits at the other side of Michael’s bed, gobbling up Myrtle’s stories.

“I kept reminding myself that it was HE who did the leaving,” she says airily. “Perhaps I am still not over it, I don’t know. But I have peace of mind knowing that the decision was not mine to make.” She eyes Michael sharply. “Unlike YOU,” she says, poking his sprawled form, “who, for some unfathomable reason, SPURNED the love that was given to you freely and undeservedly.”

Michael’s deepest self bleeds at that. But he says nothing. Only stares at the red swirls of the bed canopy and gulps the hot liquid.

“No matter how much it hurt to feel my heart break,” says Myrtle, twisting the knife, “at least I did FEEL it. I FELT and I LIVED and will carry that with me forever. Y/n wasn’t given a choice. You stole even that from her, when you decided to… to… to Tempus-lobotomize her!”

Michael feels a live spark run through him when your name is said out loud. For a quick silver moment, it hangs in the air of his room, then dissipates, leaving Michael bereft of even the sweet sound.

Myrtle gets up and goes to open the curtains, muttering something about it smelling like ‘fifth period gym class in here’. She is nearly as offended by Michael’s unwashed state as she is by the fact that an enemy she once thought to be as formidable and dispassionate as a virus or a tornado, has had the temerity to fall apart in front of her.  

“Let me tell you, Michael Langdon,” she says as air and starlight spill from the window, “most people live and die without ever once tasting what you had. Not everyone has the improbable luck of meeting their confederate soul in their lifetime. But what have you done with it? SQUANDERED it, thrown the love of your life away like last season’s Vuitton.”

Michael’s tears are so silent that no one in the room, not even he, is aware of them being shed. His heartbeat is tight and painful. With each pulse, he is pulled deeper into the sickness.

Of course, Michael was wrong.

He would do anything to take back his actions, to bring you back, to hold you in his arms forever and ever…

He has been a fool, a parasite clinging pathetically to a false notion…

In the end, Michael had simply been incapable of believing that someone as perfect as you could truly want him, for the long run. After all, what claims could Michael Langdon ever lay to happiness and lasting reciprocity of love?

His grandmother who had loved him when he was naught but a peanut in her arms, had washed her hands of him when the truth of his nature could no longer be ignored. Constance had been his flesh and blood. Constance had had no one else. Yet Constance wanted nothing to do with him.

“You were afraid,” pronounces Myrtle. “You were afraid you that you might lose Y/n. And, now, look what you have wrought.” She lets out a parched laugh. “Your fear has manifested your nightmare as surely as one of your silly Satanic spells. I hope that the preservation of your ego was worth all of the loneliness that is coming your way, Dear.”

Myrtle has a gift- whether inborn or carefully cultivated, who can know? - for picking exactly the words to say that will hurt the most. Of all the many torturers that Michael has known, she is the best/worst.   

“For someone who has always mascaraded as a devotee of chaos, you are excessively horrified by the idea of ‘risk’,” the old Witch says as she sits on the edge of the bed and smoothes the wrinkles of Michael’s comforter. “Few things in life worth having are without risk, Dear. Therein lies the excruciating balance: risk and safety. Yes, ‘balance’ is a thing magnitudes more terrifying than chaos. If you refuse to take on the great risk that is love, you resign yourself from ever living. Tis a pity. Now it is too late.” 

Michael’s tears flow hotly down the sides of his face and into his hair. He sniffs, then startles to feel a silky kerchief graze over his cheeks and hairline. Myrtle is mopping at his face with the same delicacy she might lavish upon a favored antique. Michael has not been touched since he awoke from Mallory’s ritual to find you disappeared (as per his request).

He did not think that there that there was anything left of him to break.

But there is. And it does.

Before Michael knows what is happening, Myrtle’s hand is on his shoulder and he is filling the room with harsh, racking sobs.

“There, there, Dear,” says Myrtle.

Michael sobs like an animal. “SH-SH-SH-E’S G-GONE,” he gasps. “I-l-l-l-l-love HERR. I-I- L-LOVE HER S-SO M-MUCH. Sh-sh-she’s GONE…”

“Shhhhhhhhh,” Myrtle croons. “At least you live with the irrefutable knowledge that Y/n loved you, Dear. You have that, at least.”

Michael gapes at Myrtle. He knows that this ‘knowledge’ is more than he deserves, but it is not nearly enough.

“I know how it feels to have the person you love most in the world wrenched from you, Darling,” says Myrtle, not without a hint of acid.

Michael looks into her face. His eyes are swimming aquamarine, his lips and cheeks violently red. He frowns and nods. Understanding at last. “Cordelia?” he asks.

Myrtle nods.

“I am sorry.” The words are spoken so softly as to be nearly inaudible.

“Yes, well, at least I know she is alive and well now.” Myrtle’s blue gaze narrows. “In fact, I paid her a visit just last night.”

Michael frowns and opens his mouth, then thinks better of it.

“It was not very clever of you to enlist Papa Legba to deliver your painting to the Academy yesterday morning,” says Myrtle gently. “You must have a fluffy ball located where a cerebellum ought to be.”

Michael is too weak to meet this flagrant disrespect with anything more than a blink.

Myrtle’s sweet-voiced unbraiding continues. “What, exactly, was supposed to happen, you Adonis-faced Fuckwit, when Y/n sauntered downstairs to the parlour with her sisters and found a stolen Rembrandt with her named scrawled on it?”

Michael’s mouth forms the shape of an explanation.

Myrtle silences him. “Why do it? What possible value could there be in dumping a priceless painting, from an alternate timeline, into the hands of Cordelia’s baffled Coven?”

Michael looks down. “Y/n said that it was one of her favorites,” he says softly.

Myrtle stares at him in wonder. Perhaps, if the story involved anyone but Michael Langdon, that is to say, if it were a nameless Warlock who had pilfered the artwork and kept it for years, through hellfire and nuclear fallout, for a lover who was his ideological opposite, Myrtle would find it romantic.  

“The butter must have slid off your bread, Darling, if you think Y/n would have any idea WHO sent her that, and WHY.”

Michael cries some more. “I thought maybe…” *sob* M-maybe if she saw it…” *sob* “She w-would” *sob* “remember...”

Phobos the demon makes a sympathetic noise before patting his Lord’s hand and muttering, “Girl, this isn’t a movie. You can’t just show up in your original Captain America costume from the 1940s and expect Bucky Barnes to remember who the hell you are…”

“You made a decision,” agrees Myrtle. “You made your deathbed. You can’t take it back now.” She turns to lock eyes with Phobos, whose mouth is now taut with disapproval.

“We’ll leave you to your regrets, Dear,” says Myrtle, patting Michael’s knee and signalling to the Demon.

Ambient weeping resounds as they exit the room.

…………………….

“YOU ARE ONE CALLOUS WITCH, MYRTLE SNOW,” says Phobos when they are strolling from Michael’s giant, cube-shaped Personal Hell through the colonnaded path back to the REAL red castle.

“What?” says Myrtle, all innocence.

“You KNOW what. It has been days. Your point is made. He regrets it. Now, for mercy’s sake let the poor fucker out of there!”

Myrtle regards the minion of Hell with an arch expression. “In time, Phobos, when ‘his Dark Lord’ is back in business, ordering you around and making you feed him grapes while he sits on a sedan chair like bloody Cleopatra, I will remind you of this conversation.”

The Demon sighs and looks back at the iron clad cube from which they just emerged. It is a real oddity parked here between two fountains.

Inside of that cube is the only Personal Hell that Mallory Langdon has ever designed, and it is different from all others in a few significant ways.

Firstly, it does not run with time looping. The experience of the sufferer arises ‘organically’ and not as a result of environmental stimuli. Michael believes that you are gone from his life: that is the worst Hell he could ever inhabit.

Secondly, it utilizes pocket dimensionality to create a ‘larger on the inside’ effect. Mallory reproduced several chambers, as well as three courtyards- all identical to their counterparts from the ‘real world’. In his overwhelming grief, Michael has not even noticed that he has spent the past four days living in what is essentially a stage set of his quarters. Nor did he venture far enough in any direction to encounter the constricted nature of the area. 

Thirdly, those who enter Michael’s Personal Hell are not day players in the traditional sense. The three Demons Mallory recruited for her plan genuinely worry for him, and cannot, by nature disobey a direct order from their King, but they follow Mallory’s instructions to the letter.

With Mallory gone back to the future, it has fallen on Myrtle to judge when Michael is ready to be released and disabused of the lie.

Myrtle made an oath to Mallory that she will not keep Langdon in there for any longer than she deems strictly necessary….

But what is ‘necessary’? The word can mean so many different things…

“Why did you allow Papa Legba admission into Langdon’s personal Hell?” Myrtle asks the Phobos tartly.

“The Dark Lord wished to see him,” says the Demon. “I am bound to obey…”

“Were you aware that Ocean’s One in there sent Legba on a delivery run to Robichaux’s?”

“No,” Phobos admits. “I was not. But if the KING OF HELL has a request to make of us, it will not be refused, whether or not he is incarcerated in that thing the Princess made. Incidentally, Papa said to tell you that he disapproves of what Michael is being put through.”

Myrtle rolls her eyes. “You can tell Nan’s baby-napping paramour that a little torment is NECESSARY in this case. And it’s a good thing I made it to Robichaux’s before we had an incident on our hands...”

Phobos raises an eye brow. “Just you be careful, Myrtle,” he warns. “You would not want all of this to blow up in your face. The Dark Lord is a spiteful man.”

“O, I am well aware,” says Myrtle with a smile. “But, Darling, I INVENTED spite long before your ‘Dark Lord’ was even a wet spot in a Tate Langdon’s be-latexed crotch.”

The conversation is interrupted by the breathless arrival of Nan running through a portico.

“SHE IS WAKING UP!” shouts Nan. “Come quick!”

Myrtle and Phobos exchange looks and follow Nan back into the Red Castle.

……………………………….

In a darkened room in glimmering, star strewn Hell, you stir awake. 

You are in a bed. Alone.

Alone.

Panic scrabbles like claws against the edges of your mind.

MICHAEL.

Where is Michael?

Memories of events before the great, numbing, blackening sleep dribble back into your consciousness like an IV drip. You and Michael stood outside watching your Daughter perform Tempus Infinitum. You saw the water roil. You saw Mallory sink and disappear. Michael was there, beside you, watching, crying…

But where is he now?

Your heart stutters. Your temples throb. Your mouth is parched and your face damp with sweat. There is disorder in your brain. And a slow burn of anxiety spreads through your body like a vein of hot mercury.

WHERE. IS. MICHAEL?

And what sort of sleep has had you in its clutches?

Did something go wrong?

“M-m-michael?” you say into the darkness, in a voice so thin and weak that you wonder it could be your own.

Upon closer examination of your surroundings, you realize that this room is walled with cherry wood. This is not where you slept with Michael. Beside you is a small night table beset with a cup and pitcher of water. You pour yourself a glass and drink it down, spilling on yourself.

That is when you see IT hanging on the wall.

In the frail light the figures ebb and glow, one prostrate, one bending in sympathy. The canvas is dripping in gold, ochre, olive green and the scarlet. 

Your jaw drops.

The painting has been vandalized, you realize with an overwhelming swell of affection.  ‘For Y/n’ is scrawled in the bottom corner, near the foot of the younger, judgier brother.

You remember your own words to Michael when you stood looking at the painting for the first time all those years ago in the Boston Museum. Then, you had both stared, mouths agape, as though viewing the painted remnants of a mutual dream:

“Does that disturb you, Michael, that a person might be lost and then found again? That they might be forgiven by those that truly love them?”

That is what you once asked the love of your life.

What you SHOULD have asked, you realize now with a heart-shudder, is: “Michael, do you understand how much I love you? Do you know that I would forgive you ANYTHING? You never even have to ask. I will love you no matter what you do. I will love you always.”

You should have made it abundantly, indelibly clear that you would never care to live anywhere but by his side.

That no matter what he did, or what he was, you would be a hollow wreck without him.

What would life be without Michael Langdon? Without his airs and needs and flights of excess, without his maddening, imperious, pouting stubbornness, without his love, without his profanity, without his perspective?

There is a sudden commotion by the door. You steel yourself as you see the knob turning, fumbling for the bravery and dignity with which to meet the intruder.

Your heart both rises and falls when you see Myrtle Snow.

“I hope you will forgive the zealousness of my sleeping spell, Darling. It’s been ages since I last cast one.”

“Where’s Michael?” you say reflexively.

“My Dear, you have been out cold for days, you haven’t eaten-

“Where is Michael?” you repeat.

Myrtle smiles at your one-track mind. “Calm yourself, Dear. Langdon is as stubbornly alive as ever. Look,” she says indicating to the wall, “he even left you a gift. Yes, yes. Stolen. And idiotic, I know. But it would be churlish to expect a man with a face like that to have any more brains than a paramecium. If nature were ever that overgenerous with one, there would be cause for mutiny among all other little boys.”

Your head is foggy. If you have been lying here for days… Where has Michael been? You know that he would never have left your side if he had known that you were unconscious. Surely…

“But where is he? I don’t understand,” you say desperately.

Myrtle sits down on the bed. She reaches forward and smoothes back a wet hair from your face.

“Before I tell you Dear, I want to stress that Mallory and I undertook what we considered NECESSARY. Our actions were not motivated by malice or vengefulness- well, perhaps A LITTLE on my end, but that’s by the by. We did what had to be done. Otherwise, that atrocious boy would never have seen the error of his decision.”

Your brows knit in confusion. “W-what decision? What d-did you do to him, Myrtle?” you breathe.

Myrtle begins to talk.

You listen to the story of Michael’s thwarted plan in stunned silence. 

You hear how Mallory and Myrtle plotted- and succeeded- in preventing Michael from ruining both of your lives.

Mallory built a personal Hell, a simulacrum of Michael’s quarters. After Myrtle put you both under the sleeping spell, she spirited Michael away to his gilded cage. You slept for longer than you were supposed to. But never mind that, it gave Michael even more time to marinate in the ‘consequences’ of giving you up.

“He’s a mess,” pronounces Myrtle. “He’s been in there for a mere four days, but by the sight- and smell- of him, one would be forgiven for thinking it’s been weeks. I have never seen a more broken spirit in all of my life, and I’ve lived in Hell an age…”

By the time Myrtle is finished speaking, the room has started to spin.

Your mind is stretching and twisting itself to accommodate the enormity of Michael’s blunder.

You have so much love for the Antichrist that all of Hell is filled with it. Michael might not know it, but everywhere he walks, there your love is, engulfing him, eternal, untransmutable, impossible to kill or outrun. It is what he breathes. It is what he eats and drinks. It is the marrow in his bones. Your love is beneath his nails and in his hair and under his very skin. It fills his mouth and eye sockets. Your love covers him. When he bleeds, it is your liquid love that flows out of him. When he is in pain, you feel the same pain magnified by an order of a thousand.    

You love Michael now.

In the future, you will only love him more. That is that.

Why can’t the idiot see this?

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HIM?

“I must go to him, Myrtle,” you say.

Myrtle swallows. “Yes, well, we rather thought that the, erm… truth might be better received if it was accompanied by your return.”

You are too polite to laugh in Myrtle Snow’s face. You know that if Michael were to find out about the subterfuge from anyone but you, he would make lunchables’ meat out of his red headed captor’s entrails.

“Do you feel strong enough to stand, Dear?”

You nod, though you don’t see how it matters.

Myrtle helps you upright. Walking after four days in bed has a distinctly coltish quality to it. Your feet feel like weights dangling from to two flimsy ropes.

“I think that it will be rather a pleasure,” murmurs Myrtle as you lean against her.

“What?” you ask.

“Knowing you, Dear.”

…………………………………..

Myrtle leads you to the diabolical cube in the garden and leaves you to your fate.

You have never seen an object like this before. It is gray and covered with shell-like coils. Parts of it appear to be wrought of titanium, others of bone. If this cube were to appear in a science fiction film, you decide, its design would be praised by film critics for appearing well and properly ‘alien’.

The portal of Michael’s Personal Hell opens at your approach, as though it has been waiting.

Inside, you are greeted by an eerily precise facsimile of the bedroom you shared with your lover during your first night in Hell. 

It demands all of the will in your being not to fall to your knees the moment you see Michael’s deathly pale, recumbent form on the bed.

You have never seen anything so befitting of the word: ‘languishing’ in your entire life. Michael is awake, but this is wakefulness that makes the comatose look lively by comparison.

So catatonic with grief is Michael Langdon, that his heightened senses miss the pad of your footsteps and the eager sound of your breath as you approach.

Lit by starlight, the details of him flood your awareness like a painful, blissful tide. You have starved for him, you realize. You have starved for Michael even in the mists of sleep.

His beautiful face is marked by dried tracks of tears. They river into his hair, where strands of new and antique gold mingle with copper, lemon and honey against the pillow. His eyelashes are wet brushes above sallow cheeks. Beneath his miraculous green-blue eyes are patches of shadow so dark as to resemble bruising. His lips are dry, their plushness tinged alarmingly with gray. Michael has not shaven, and there are smears of dirt on his face.

He is so wretched, so filthy, so divinely beautiful.

You have an impulse to kiss, as though kissing could absorb the pain and weariness from that face.

You crouch down to be near him and wait to be seen. Michael’s chest rises and falls, the movement shatteringly human. Michael does not turn. He does not look. Some abyss, you know, has him in its snare.

It has been four days.

Four days.

And look what your King has been reduced to!

With a steeling breath, you fall upon him. Shaking and sobbing onto his chest.

All at once, Michael’s limbs stir. He is startled. Trembling. Your lips capture his before they can break your heart with disbelieving protest. Then, you kiss every other part of him that you manage to snatch up. Eyebrows. Eyelids. Chin. Cheeks.

Michael is shaking so violently that you fear, for a moment, that he might be having a seizure. Then, without warning he takes your face between his hands and examines you in the light. The look in his eyes is sheer, crystalline madness.

He makes noises, but they are not speech. New tears liquify the path of the old.  

“It’s me, Michael!”

The air is rended with the most terrible, animal wail you have ever heard in your life.

“Michael,” you whisper, “Shhhhhh, it is all right, I am here… I am here, my Love. I am here.”

Michael holds your face, eyes widening in confusion. His head bends forward until his forehead is flush with the place where your neck meets your collar bone. Then he raises it and your breath catches in that precise spot when he begins licking. Like an animal. Michael licks, frenziedly, sloppily, for quite a while, as though to ascertain the nature of this mirage through taste.

Your cunt pools in response to the act.

You wonder what kind of reaction this is, from him, from you. But make no motion to stop him.

Instead, you breathe in great lungful’s of Michael, great lungful’s of the scent that you have known for years, ever since he was a boy on a park bench brimming with diamond bright innocence and squandered evil; the scent that, fills you, by turns, with calm and insanity.

But when his grasp becomes tighter, you squirm.

It occurs to you that Michael doubts that you are real.

Rough hands find your breasts, cupping, lifting, ripping your silk robe with a loud CRACK, then finding your nipples and twisting desperately. He leans down and bites your neck.

You cry out. “I’m real, Michael! For the love of God, I am REAL!”

The manhandling ceases. 

Michael raises his head, leaving your saliva slick nipples to pucker in the cool air.

Michael is, you can tell, inhabiting a state of mind that is not precisely… coherent.

Again, you think: it has only been four days.

You press the gentlest of kisses to the corner of his mouth.

His hand reaches to touch the spot. A Stunned whoosh of air escapes him. Michael stares like he is being offered a meal in the peak of famine. His body lilts a little, as though he might swoon and faint. But he doesn’t.

“I am in dream?” he asks.

And why would Michael think otherwise? Cool, gentle hands are touching him. Lips are grazing his face like fairy wings, fluttering, familiar kisses that make him want to die from the agony of their sweetness.

It is a dream he knows he must memorize and hold within his soul if he is to survive the oncoming desert of his eternity…

It must be a dream, Michael knows, for this is no demon mocking him. He can recognize demonic magic without a moment’s effort.  

Michael wonders how his rot of a mind could ever conjure THIS. It is both the best and most sadistic thing that could happen to him. Michael’s mind does not grant him visions as real and touch-able as THIS. His is a mind that has only ever led toward sharp cliffs and brackish water. It was this self-same mind that whispered to Michael to give you up, that lied and said he could live in the absence of air and light…

He knows this can’t be real, but Michael still falls for it, on some level- namely the lowest. He notes that his cock is hard within the prison of his trousers, and that the smell and touch of the phantasm is making it worse. Love has made him insane. How could he have thought it would ever be otherwise? Michael’s love and need for you is as constant as hell’s obsidian sky. Without you, his heart and his brain can’t function. Look at what they are doing now!

The odd thing is that his mind has conjured you to appear frailer and more tired than usual. Your lovely face is hollowed out with worry. And Michael wishes to soothe and comfort you, even though you are not- for YOU CANNOT BE- real.

“They tricked you,” the illusion whispers, pressing its annihilating soft lips upon his cheek. “Mallory and Myrtle have trapped you in a kind of ‘Personal Hell’. It isn’t like the usual sort. There are no time loops. It is simply a recreation of your room.” The illusion reddens. “Myrtle said that your Personal Hell consists simply and entirely of my absence… I told her that that was impossible, that you had spent the past four years ruling the world without me.”

You look down. Bashful.

This confuses Michael even more. But it does something. Like the skin of a sinner in deepest Tartarus, Michael’s disbelief is slowly being burned away.

“It is me, my love,” you say, leaning in, smiling and weeping against bristled skin.

With great tenderness, you wipe Michael’s tears, and his snot, with your hands.

Michael’s eyes flicker in reaction to your actions. Later, you will decide that this was what did it: the snot part. Michael is jostled back to life by the shock of witnessing someone love him THAT much.

“Y/n?” Michael whispers. “Is it really you?”

You stroke his tangled, golden mess of hair. “Yes.”

“B-but h-how?”

“You’ve been out-maneuvered. I would have come sooner,” you say emphatically, “I would have liberated you immediately, but I have been asleep for four days. Myrtle claims she made her spell too strong on me, ‘by mistake’, but I have my doubts...”

“Are you hurt?” Michael asks in alarm.

“No, no, it was just a long sleep…”

He pauses, then asks, “D-did I hurt you?”

You know that Michael is referring to his rough handling of you a moment ago. But you can’t help but consider the ‘macro’ picture… Michael Langdon has opened your chest, taken out your pulsing heart and blended it make a fucking smoothie more times in the past four years than you would be callous enough to recount to him at the present moment. The Antichrist’s latest transgression consists of attempting to wipe your memory of him and abandon you inside a world he no longer owns.     

He HAS hurt you. But just the sound of his voice fills the cracks of your being like flowing quick silver.

“No.”

Michael is piecing together the puzzle now. “Mallory’s spell,” he says, “Tempus Infinitum…”

“It worked,” you say, then avert your eyes, not wishing to see regret etched on his face. “The apocalypse has been undone. It is as if you and I never walked the earth. But Mallory said that we can visit whenever we want, just as long as we don’t… tamper.”

You are making assumptions, you know. You are presuming that Michael is as ready to spend a chaos-free eternity by your side as you are. He might not be.

For all you know.

Then, like a clap of thunder, or a shot through the brain with an arrow: you have an epiphany. You and Michael have been kept apart from one another by four years of lies and misunderstandings.

That should end.

Now.

The time has come to be transparent.

With a deep breath, you shake away your fear.

“Michael,” you say, staring into his beautiful eyes, “I want to take my last breath in your arms.”

Michael frowns. “What? There won’t BE a last breath, Y/n, you are mine FOREVER.”

You smile at his intensity. “What I mean to say is…” you search for the right words. Everything you can think to say is rubbish compared to how you feel. “Michael, I love you. I love you so much. It is a desperate situation, really, how much I love you. But it isn’t fun to be in love with a man who has godlike powers and can take it in his mind to send me away any time he likes…”

The hurt in Michael’s face makes you hesitate, but you go on.

“I wish that I could love you enough for both of us, Michael. I wish that I could make you see how astonishingly perfect you are. I wish you could feel my happiness when I think of you. I wish you could live one moment in my heart and see that you are my beginning, my end, my joy, my universe; that I need all of you, even the parts of yourself that you think are ugly and evil. Everything you are and every thought you have, I love. I want to belong to you, Michael. I want you to belong to me. I am so greedy for you it makes me want to scream, it makes me want to cry… I’m rambling.”

Your words are punctuated with little sobs.

Michael leans forward and proceeds to dry your tears with his cheeks and lips, too addled by what you have said to answer in words.

Seeing you suffer brings on a visceral reaction within Michael, as though his being were a mere phantom of your own, radiating with your pain.

But you go on talking, because you must, because this self-hating, acorn brained Devil must HEAR, must KNOW what he has wrought. “Please, Michael,” you beg, “don’t send me away anymore. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take it for another minute.”

Michael gapes in disbelief. “Send you away?” he says breathlessly. “H-how can you think-”

“Because you have already done it, Michael!” you say. “Twice, if I am counting. Am I wrong or didn’t you try to take away all of my memories of you? MY MEMORIES, MICHAEL.” You feel your grief like a temper rising, so great it seems to hollow out your insides, as though there were no room for lungs and intestines amid the inferno of emotion. “If you wanted me gone from your life, after all we’ve been through, you might have at least granted me the courtesy of saying goodbye.”

Michael howls in protest. “STOP!” he cries, unable to bear it. “I thought you would be happier without me! I thought you would be better up there in the daylight. I was sure that you would hate me one day, if I did not let you go…”

“HATE YOU?” you roar. “HATE YOU??? Michael, I have died for you. I would do it again. You’re the one who keeps throwing me away, flinging me into the overworld like I’m weak fish!”

Michael blinks. “Weak fish?”

“YES!” you shout, incandescent now with love and rage. “You act like you burn for me, Michael Langdon. But you’d sooner see me sleeping alone my white room in New Orleans…”

“NO,” Michael shouts.

Like a She-Devil in possession of red-hot tipped pitchfork, you go on, poking him. “You wanted me to forget you!”

“I thought you would WANT-”

“WANT?” You verily spit, “WANT?”

Your next action surprises you. But you follow it, unflinchingly, to its natural conclusion.

You lean forward and lick a lascivious stripe from Michael’s neck to the base of his ear. Then, you take his trembling hand in yours and bring it to the waist band of your pajama bottoms, then down, down, down, it slips, beneath the silk to where you are hot and naked and helplessly wet- simply because he is nearby.

Michael draws in a harsh breath as his fingers touch the wetness of your core. His eyes flutter shut. His colour is returning now, you are pleased to note. Michael is becoming, once more, a creature of live flesh.

Historically, when Michael has been in distress, you have sought to soothe him. To indulge him.

Now will be different.

Now Michael must LEARN. Then he might finally- FINALLY- be able to accept happiness.  

It takes monumental reserves of strength not to unravel as Michael rubs two determined digits through the cleft that he loves so much.

You let out a sigh of pleasure, but then lean into his ear to deliver the death blow. “You wanted another man to have THIS.”

It’s pretty horrible, you know.

Michael recoils as though you have shot him with bullets. “WHAT? NO!”  

You grab his hand and pull it out of your pants. “Perhaps not, but you would have ALLOWED it,” you accuse. “You would have had me full of another man’s squalling babies, instead of the ONE WE ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE!!”

Michael’s eyes spark electricity. This, you know in an instant,

Is.

Too.

Fucking.

Far.

“You’re MINE,” Michael hisses as he grabs your hips bruisingly and crushes you closer. You feel the heat of his cock through fabric against your leg. All attempts to wiggle away are in vain. “You will have NO OTHER BABIES BUT MINE,” Michael says, then proceeds to ravish your mouth with a series of wet, devouring kisses. You can practically taste the madness on his tongue as he shoves it into your mouth. “ANYONE THAT COMES OUT OF YOU, I WILL HAVE FUCKING PUT THERE.”

Michael shoves his hand back into your pajamas and palms his obsession.

“Believe me, Little Witch,” he sneers, “had you ever allowed anyone to so much as touch you, I would have traversed the realms…” His fingers curl in a way that makes your toes do likewise. The Antichrist’s bristled jaw scrapes at your cheek as he vows, “I would have decapitated any mewling mortal who so much as looked-”

With a tug of regret you summon up the full force of your magic to produce an energy burst that momentarily knocks Michael away.

It only worked, you know, because he was not expecting it.

Michael stares at you in shock.

“You know what Michael?” you say. “I take it back. It DOES hurt. It hurts more than anything in the world to know that you chose to live without me. It hurts knowing that you even could. Because I couldn’t live without you. Not even if I thought it was the ‘right’ thing.”

The irony of admonishing Michael Langdon for doing the so called ‘right’ thing is not lost on you.

“No,” Michael whispers, looking down at his empty lap, “I couldn’t. Y/n I nearly died,” he confesses. “I could actually FEEL the life draining from me. I am certain that I would have died of grief if I had gone on thinking that you were gone forever.” He swallows. You move closer. You take his hand in yours and twine his beringed fingers with yours.

“Idiot,” you grind out, reaching to cup his cheek. “Honestly, Michael… If you ever do dare die on me, I won’t hesitate to get Cordelia and all her posse down here to perform Vitalis and then your ass will really be in trouble.”

“It was as if I had cut my own heart out of my body and sent it to live at Robichaux’s Academy…”

You pull him into a squeezing embrace and feel his heartbeat thump violently against your own. “Shhhhhhh,” you croon.

“I… I am so sorry,” Michael whispers into your hair. “I know that the words are not enough. But if you give me eternity, I will spend it making amends. Please, little Witch. Please stay with me.”

You hold him tighter. “Always, Michael.”

You hold each other for a long time. Hours perhaps.

You whisper love words.

And Michael keeps apologizing. You have to keep kissing him to make him stop.

Your body feels weary from Myrtle’s spell. But you refuse to succumb to sleep. You want to be awake with Michael.

“I love you so much,” you whisper. “I’ve loved you ever since we were at Robichaux’s. I would have found you, somehow, even if Mallory had not conspired to bring us together.”

“And I would have brought you to me after the apocalypse,” says Michael. “I would have imprisoned you, and made you love me again.”

“Michael…”

“It’s what WOULD have happened. I’m just saying…”

“I never stopped loving you, you fool.”

“If you do, I’ll die.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“If you ever try to leave me,” Michael vows, “I will destroy the world.”

Your jaw drops. But just when you think he might be serious, Michael smiles devilishly.

Michael stiffens and peels back from you, then, without breaking your gaze, he magicks away the tattered robe that hangs from your shoulders. If Myrtle or Nan or the Demons were to enter now, they would encounter a cave man-ified Michael Langdon and a naked you instigating the x rated stage of your reunion.

“I’ll do it properly this time,” says Michael, shrugging off his own garments and leaning forward to kiss and lave at the column of your throat. Your eyes close as you surrender to the exquisite sensation. You feel your stomach coil and your pussy get wetter despite the fact that Michael goes on to say, “This time, I am going BIBLICAL. No Billionaires. Four LITERAL horsemen. And I am going to animate some fucking skeletons.” His head lowers and stubble drags against the soft curve of your breast.

“Michael?” you half moan as his mouth helps itself to a nipple and pulls. 

His hand is skimming purposefully down your abdomen, and you arch and strain against him. “Yes?”

“Shut up…”

Michael draws back to look at you, tilting his head to one side. Green-blue ice narrows. His mouth curls into an all too alluring sneer. “Greedy little Girl,” he says, shaking his head as if in contempt, “Always begging me to eat her cunt…”

“O MY GOD, MICHAEL THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”

He raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?”

You know he’s playing but you can’t help but blush and squeeze your thighs together. “I’m not the one who-”

Michael silences you by wrenching your thighs apart with a whipping, fluid force and settling between them. You are jolted backwards. The Antichrist lifts your leg and bites down on the inside of your thigh, marking you as indisputably his to fuck and cherish and worship till the end of eternity. “Such a begging little Wanton…” He rasps as a long, confident finger eases its way into your gushing channel. “Never not wet…”

The words singe you with humiliation even though you know that it will ever be Michael who begs. There are times when not even your bashful heart can deny what is obvious: that your arousal is quintessence of his existence, and that it is a heady feeling indeed to get head from the King of Hell…     

“So greedy…” Michael chides as he sinks down and gazes longingly at his favorite gateway. Your lift your hips to him in urging. He chuckles at the unconscious action. “You want my mouth on you morning noon and night,” he says, mocking even as his trembling thumbs poise against your folds, and his eyes glass over in worship.  “You’d do anything… Of all the wicked sluts in hell,” he pronounces. “You are the most debauched. You could probably whip yourself into an orgasmic frenzy just from the sound of my voice. I wouldn’t even have to stoop to touch you.”

This is a factual observation, you decide. But you are ever so grateful when Michael ‘stoops’, crying out when his mouth seals against your clitoris and sucks up the nerve-rich flesh all around. The Devil’s son, appropriately enough, has a tongue like a serpent. It laps and lashes and presses hard as Michael fucking DINES, every now and then, slurping and releasing. Your clit swells against him and Michael is drunk on it, drunk on the control, drunk on the lack of it, heart pumping in his chest, quickening with every pull your ambrosial juices. He shoves his fingers into the glistening passage. He will never, not in a billion years, tire of the ecstasy of WOMAN tightening around him. His hands. His cock. His tongue. Michael wants them all vice-squeezed and drenched. He needs to feel it. Can’t live without.

As if to prove his earlier remarks true, you shudder with the force of your first orgasm in almost no time at all.

Then, soon after that, another.

Michael does not stop.

You begin to lose count…

Your flesh is swelling and straining with the sweetest kind of anguish. You have become a babbling mess, so lost in pleasure that you thrash violently and grind yourself on Michael’s head.

Every now and then, Michael will lift his face from your pussy to taunt you a little, or to demonstrably spoon out the fluids that river from your cunt with his fingers. “Look at this,” he commands. “No wonder you’re here… You belong in Hell, lascivious little tart.”

Rubbing and, it must be said, sloshing, his hand in and out of your pussy, Michael looks up at you with pitiless, enraptured focus. “Who does this to you?” he demands.

“You do, Michael! O…”

He groans in assent. “And who owns you?”

You have half a mind to hesitate. Michael slows his rubbing and glares. “Who. Fucking. Owns. You,” he repeats, as his fingers leave your cunt howling in emptiness. He watches you mull over the tattered remnants of your pride as he brings these pussy slick fingers into his mouth to suck on, closing his eyes as though sampling a heavenly delicacy.

“You do, Michael… YOU DO!” you admit, and the way Michael’s face alights with coupled relief and smugness leaves you in no doubt that this ‘ownership’ goes both ways.

“You exist to be fucked,” pronounces Michael, fearing inwardly that this is too much. He can feel what a touch of humiliation does to your cunt and is eager to indulge. Noting the pulse of your pussy, he decides to go on. “I am going to tie you to this bed and have you any time I want. Any hole I want. And you’ll beg and thank me for it… Won’t you?”

Your cheeks burn.

“Won’t you, Little Witch?”

“…..Yes. O Michael.”

Michael returns to his feast. His eyes close as he drowns himself in cunt, tongue furiously swiping, teeth grazing your clit.

You move against him, inside him, like a tiny thing enveloped in the jaws of a beast.

The transcendent intensity of the feelings Michael is creating is almost painful. You shake and beg. But it is a begging for something undefined… His cock? His love? His possession? Duh, you have all that. Something non-corporeal? Something tainted and earthly? Ditto.

Michael has, for all his prolific career bringing you to the brink of your wits with pleasure, never led you this far into the warm abyss of madness.

Maybe it’s because of what you said about other people getting have your pussy…

Tears are streaming down your face as your cunt bursts drenches the Son of Satan. And he, poor devil, has no recourse but to lick his own face.

He, who covered the world with fire, and sullied the oceans, and ravened your innocence, looks up like an acolyte before their god.  

You gaze at Michael’s wet, spellbound face. He is so beautiful that it is very nearly painful to see. But not merely not in face and body. And if it takes all of eternity, you will make Michael surrender. You will make Michael honor the good and beauty that is inside of him, even as if twines with evil.   

Michael migrates to rest next to you at the headboard and mutters instructions. You summon the coherence to draw yourself up and straddle his lap.

“My Darling Witch….” Michael groans as you impale yourself on his cock. “FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK.

Michael pumps slowly up into your core until you tighten and release around his girth, quivering and crying until you fall boneless against him.

Your cunt clenches. Not wanting to let him go.

Michael continues to fuck, faster now, his hips pistoning, his face an ecstatic rictus.

With every rhythmic stroke, you clutch him, kiss him, claim him. Michael may be the King of Hell, he may top you in increasingly, extravagantly top-y ways, but you both know there is but one Master in this room (spoiler alert: it is not him). This is how it will be for the next eternity, give or take, even when Michael uses his darkest sexual talents to subjugate you, he will end up wearing the chains.

For now, Michael earns the moniker ‘Boy Wonder’ with every heated stroke, for, even as he shatters toward his own peak, he applies two finger’s worth of fast, glorious pressure to you clit.

You cum, and Michael follows you, his own climax burning like a rising sun, blasting him into a stratosphere of unbearable ecstasy.

You fall into his shoulder and your vision blurs. Hell grows black.

When you awake it is later. You aren’t sure by how much.

Michael’s head is next to yours on the pillow. He is drying your tears and whispering soothing things. “My Beautiful Witch,” he croons. “My good girl. My Angel.”

The contents of a large glass of water are tipped past your unresisting lips. A wet cloth finds your forehead. Another, the apex of your thighs. In the periphery of your mind, it occurs to you to challenge the direction of this situation. You remember how Michael appeared when you first entered this chamber: the dead stare, the languishing. You should be taking care of him. You open your mouth to say so. But Michael captures it in a kiss so gentle it threatens to make you fall apart all over again.

“But, Michael, you-”

Michael raises himself against the corona of light from the window (which you suppose is not really a window). To your surprise, he no longer looks tattered and exhausted, but golden and radiating with health and vigor. The briefest brush of his skin leaves you reeling with a frisson of Satanic power. You are put in mind of something grumpy Cordelia once said about the prophecy of ‘The Alpha’.

“I-I should be taking care of you…” you tell him anyway. Because he is your Michael, and you can’t help it.

“I recover quickly when you are nearby.” Michael strokes your hair, then frowns in annoyance. “Your body will take longer to mend from the sleeping spell. You are immortal now, but still, the refurbished magic takes time to take hold.”

You laugh and roll your eyes at this. “I am sorry if my body is a bother, Michael.”

“You will get stronger over time, Love. Immortality can be odd that way.” Then, Michael’s face turns very serious. “And if you ever call your body ‘a bother’ again I will spank your ass raw.” He clasps your hand in his own and draws it up for a light kiss. “The only ‘bother’ is having to wait until you have gathered your strength before I can fuck you again.”

Michael says this earnestly.

He ends up not waiting.

It is glorious.

You move together as one, a hydra of passion covered in a thick sheen of sweat.

At one point, your lips are wrapped around Michael’s dick and he says something arousing but hilarious about you being a ‘Satanic cum dump’ and you can’t help but laugh out loud. The next thing you know, thick ropes of Satanic cum are arcing into the air, landing on your breasts, throat and hair.

Michael cleans you with a dampened cloth, breathing harsh, ragged breaths that rapidly turn into sobs.

“I’m so happy,” he cries, wiping the last bit off your cheek.

By the time you are ready to depart the personal Hell, hand in hand, it has been transformed into a sex steeped heaven which you dearly hope no Demon will have to go in and clean up.

Michael leads you to a hot spring somewhere between the Red Castle and the Styx. You lie against your love’s chest, submerged and warm. Then, in a tender act harkening back to your days as a boy and girl at Robichaux’s, you shave Michael’s face with a pink safety razor and generous dollops of foam.  

Michael returns the favor by washing your hair. As he peppers your neck and back with kisses. You grind back against his spooning form, feeling his muscles coil. Soon you are rocking together, breathing one breath. And when the rapture claims you both you are too lost and transported to recognize the miracle that is gracing Hell’s horizon for the first time. The sky above the river runs the spectrum from blush pink to indigo. You do not notice until there are streaks of fire in the clouds, adding to the hue of honey and rose petals.

“Michael!” you gasp, “Look!”

But by then, your Love is asleep at your shoulder, lips parted, brow smooth, shining in the Dawn.

You transmute the two of you to your rooms in the Red Castle, and settle yourself in bed with Michael, following him into blissful sleep as sunshine lights along the edges of mountains and makes Hell shimmer.

………………………………………………………..

Some months after the day of your marriage, the King of Hell stands on a colonnaded balcony in the red castle and surveys the sun dappled expanse of his dominion.   

He has allowed* (*aka, no one fucking asked him) you to spend 72 hours on Earth getting re-aquainted with your Coven.

In the past few blissful months, Michael has given little to no thought to the overworld. Now, it is all he can think about.

O, he doesn’t give a shit about ending it…

The foul game that is human history is allowed to scurry on- FOR NOW. Humanity will find itself, at turns, in realms of chaos far deeper and more hellish than anything Michael Langdon can dream up. Let the tyrants rise and fall like tides beneath an authoritarian moon, Michael thinks. Let the oceans boil of their own, not his, accord. Let the world be cracked and torn by rifts both volcanic and political. Let ignorance and malice fall upon humanity like a landslide. Let greed devour it like a new carcass. And let those cruel, indifferent sentinels that mankind calls ‘angels’ favor them with no miracles.  

One day, though it may take many millenniums, Michael will be handed the privilege of ending the world. What exactly the world will be composed of by such a time, no one, perhaps not even his as-yet-unborn daughter, Mallory, can say. Perhaps Michael will only need purse his lips and blow for its ash to be scattered into the velvet void of the cosmos.

Whatever

Michael isn’t anxious about it.

He’ll be patient.

For all he cares, the world can take its sweet time diddling itself to get ready for him.

He has already wasted too many precious years chasing after the apocalypse. It took actually achieving this goal, albeit, in a reality only a few people remember, to make Michael realize he wanted something else entirely.

He wants you. Only you, now and tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterward for all of eternity.

Michael may reside in hell, but, O, how reverently he drinks from the sweet spring of heaven!

He has barely let you out of his sight in months, and still, you need only glance in his direction and Michael feels the lightning of desire crack within the gray mists of his soul.

There are denizens of hell who see their King and Queen gallivanting and they…. they have QUESTIONS.

‘What the fuck is this?’ they wonder.

Why is the Lord of all that is Dark and Interminable laughing like a schoolboy and making gooey eyes at this light souled girl?

Why does he give in to anything she asks?

Why is he freeing souls whom she deems ‘undeserving of eternal torment’?

Why is Satan’s son frolicking in the valleys and meadows of hell like a sparkly vampire in a teen novel?

Why does he promise to take her on vacations to the overworld?

Why does the Antichrist keep talking about ‘starting a family’? Does he think that it is a good idea to sire children with someone so virtuous that it will surely pollute the perfectly foul bloodline of hell? Why is he talking longingly of giving said offspring piggyback rides and teaching them satanic magic to balance out their mother’s tiresome light sourced enchantments? If children WERE to occur, surely the Dark Lord should eat them, they think, CRONUS STYLE.

Honestly, if the Dark Lord didn’t pick up a pitchfork and fuck up some shit once in awhile, they’d say Satan should wank into a tube and call up Maury Povitch.   

What so few of the inhabitants of Hell seem to understand, is that the essence of Michael is composite. There are veins of goodness even within the foulest ores of his being. He strives, each day, to give these parts the weight of his awareness. 

It is a small effort to make, Michael thinks, in exchange for your suffering his presence for eternity. Not that you seem to be suffering. As much as his senses sing when there IS suffering, Michael knows and appreciates the happiness of the satiated woman in his midst. 

You have infected him with joy. You have infected him with love and meaning and purpose.

His love.

His Queen.

The one person who never gave up on him.

His human shaped paradise in the innermost sanctum of hell.

His unfathomable joy.

The creature who dims even the pleasure of remembering what it felt like to crush green tinged skeletons beneath Prada shoes. 

The body to which Michael nails himself nightly, like an insurgent gladiator on a cross lining the Appian Way. 

The woman whose love he will never cease wishing to be worthy of.

No realm, be it earth, or hell, can ever hope to accommodate the immensity of his love for you.

“Michael?”

The Antichrist’s reverie is interrupted by the sound of your voice.

Hot, unbidden tears of happiness drip from his cheeks into your hair when you fall into his waiting arms.

“I’m home early,” you say. And all of Hell seems to glow with the how much you missed him.

 

The End

……………………………………………………………………..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to post the epilogue up with this chapter but it made the whole thing too long so there is another chapter following this which is the epilogue.  
> HOPE YOU ENJOY!  
> xo


	10. EPILOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE READ PREVIOUS CHAPTER FIRST**  
> Lovely readers, we come to the end!  
> This is the epilogue, BUT MAKE SURE Y'ALL READ THE LAST CHAPTER FIRST (I am posting one after the other and being annoying and paranoid, sorry)
> 
> WARNING: DANGEROUS AMOUNTS OF FLUFFFFFFFF COMING YOUR WAY
> 
> See you on the other side.  
> Lots of love and heaps of gratitude for anyone who ever checked out and/or stuck with this story. You have made me so happy!

Epilogue (or ‘Scenes from a Marriage’)

 

“While I appreciate that there are times your appetites veer toward masochism, my Love, I don’t see why you enjoy spending time with that consortium or harpies,” says Michael petulantly. “They made fun of me all evening. Cordelia practically spat in my face. And that other blonde one offered me head when you went to help Myrtle with her souffles.”

You raise an eye brow. “Madison?”

“I don’t want to go back there, Y/n.”

No.

No, you have to agree. Michael’s grand re-re-re…. -introduction to the Witches of Robichaux’s was not the resounding success you hoped it would be.

It seems that Myrtle, in her initial, spiteful bluster toward the Antichrist, revealed rather too many clues about Michael and his activities in past timelines to make him the Coven’s esteemed guest.

Cordelia’s existing suspicions regarding him were compounded as the evening wore on and Michael drank wine and spoke a little too lovingly of the ‘innate corruptibility of humanity’, and how that was ‘the main lesson my Father taught me’, which, “despite our differences, still has useful applications’. References were made to babies and bathwater, and the not throwing out of.

From there, slings and arrows abounded.

Myrtle called Michael a ‘scum-sucking Philistine’.

Cordelia loudly inquired if your relationship is an ongoing bout of Concillium.

Queenie implied that Satanic powers ‘don’t count’.

The problem is what Michael so proudly calls his ‘night vision of the soul’. He can launch an insult with the devastating precision of a ballistic missile. With cruelty that made your jaw drop, he casually described to Cordelia, over after dinner amaretto and biscuits, what exactly her Mother Fiona was enduring in her personal hell.

The Supreme stared at him, spellbound with fury.

“I can let her out, if you wish,” Michael offered casually, which, you suppose, was better than if he’d not.

Cordelia proceeded to hex the ‘Alpha’ so hard his nose bled.

A flare of protectiveness awakened inside you then. You rose, on impulse. But Michael was up first, springing from the table with a crash of cutlery to retaliate. Knowing how powerful he is, you had no choice but to jam your body between them to stop the madness.

That was when you decided it was best to cut losses and go home.

And now your husband is pacing the room in futile anguish. He is enraged at himself for failing to become what he thinks you want him to be.

You also suspect that, in his heart of hearts, Michael secretly longs for the confederation of Witches. The boy whom Hell spat out wishes to be initiated into the privileged female sanctum…

Poor Thing.

“Your people skills will improve over time, My Love. I promise, the Witches will be won over. You can be very charming. Sometimes.”

Michael balks. “My ‘people skills’ are excellent. Everyone is afraid of me! And I can make anyone eat from my hand!”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course you can Michael…”

His gaze grows a degree hotter.

“I don’t recall you ever complaining about my ‘people skills’ when you’re begging to take my cock.”

Your traitorous pussy throbs at that. But you refuse to play ball, instead, you lift your chin imperiously and regard the Devil’s son with erroneous disdain. “I never beg. I never would. Not for you.”

The wind is knocked out of you as you are tackled backward onto the burgundy sheets of your marital bed.

Wrestling ensues.

There is gasping, grasping, moaning, swearing, straining as you tear at each other like a pair of beasts.

What begins as a horned up battle of wills ends in a pure, distillation of love.

You hold nothing back from one another. Not ever.

By the time Michael finally thrusts into you the madness has burned away. Replaced by new madness.

Your cunt sucks at the sweetly pumping piston of a cock. You feel full. You feel fucking churned.

 Sometimes when Michael fucks you it feels like there are arrows being pulled back and fired into your heart. Above you, his face is a mask of helpless, erotic rapture.

When you feel the rhythm of his thrusts stutter you can’t help but join him into the lava filled abyss.

You cum together and he collapses on you and you laugh giddily.

Michael looks into your eyes and draws you hand in his. Staring at you with more reverence than you have ever seen, he lays a kiss on the inside of your palm. Then does the same to the other one.

And you both know, in that instant, what has happened.

Because it as though the present and future are being filled up at once.

You hold each other and reel in mutual astonishment.

The first word in the magnificent story that is to be the life of Mallory Langdon has been written.

…………………………………

You are in the eighth month of pregnancy and feel like a bloated, aching mess, but if you thought Michael was worshipful of your body before…

Every time you occupy a room with your husband, the man seems to quiver from head to toe, as if your mere sight and heft and existence pushes him beyond his capacity to cope with reality.

Those blazing, sea glass eyes water over as he gazes at you.

You hear audible sighs.

Michael is almost a parody of a hyper-attentive Father-to be. His desk is stacked with literature on the subject of childbirth. There are nights you let him go down on you just to stop him from expounding on the subject of folic acid or latching or baby growth charts or breastmilk (the expressing of) or breast milk (the storage of) …

Mostly, you smile and adore Michael through his obsessive dissemination of all things pregnancy. You would be a liar if you said that it wasn’t lovely to be so cherished.

But, every once in a while, it helps to remember that this is Michael Langdon, and his attentiveness is not without self-interest… There is something- god help you- primordially arousing for him about seeing you grow enormous with his child.

“I’ve really cinched the deal now,” Michael ‘jokes’ one morning, over breakfast. “Your goose is COOKED Y/n. You’ll never be able to leave me now. Ha Ha.”

You gaze at your beautiful life partner with a splintering, incredulous heart. “Michael, are you really afraid that I might abandon you?”

Michael looks down at his oatmeal.

“You know, a baby doesn’t ‘cinch’ anything, Darling,” you say gently, reaching for his hand across the table. “I am here with you, because I want to be. I couldn’t imagine a life without you. Your ‘breeding’ of me-” (you add, with a wink, because that is what Michael had once referred to it as in the throes of role play) is not a factor in my decision.”

Michael’s shoulders slacken with relief.

“Am I to take it that you are only with ME because I am serving as host to Satan’s parasitic grand-spawn?” you tease.

Michael looks at you earnestly. “No not at all. If anything, the parasite is likely to ice me out of your heart.” He takes a sad bite of oatmeal.

“Michael…”

He sniffs and looks up.

“Michael, if you think I won’t have time for your childish nonsense once there is an ACTUAL child in the picture, you’re wrong.” You look down at your improbable stomach and sigh. “This is going to be our family, my love. And if anything, she’ll need lessons on how to be a cankerous, demanding little Hellion. I am hardly up to the task.”

Michael manages a weak smile. “She’ll need an instruction manual…”

Every night, Michael runs you hot baths. Every night, you hear his breath catch as his eyes rove wildly over distended breasts and belly.

When you allow it, he is never not touching. Never not cupping. Never not awe struck.

Pregnancy-Michael makes Road-Trip Michael look like a Fuck Boi who was playing hard to get.

You’ve snapped at him a few times, you are ashamed to admit. Like when you swatted his hand away when he attempted to feed you from it as though you were an orphaned capuchin monkey.  

“I’m sorry Michael,” you said afterward, drawing his pouting face into the crook of your neck.

 You blame it on the torrent of hormones- satanic and otherwise- flowing through you at the moment.

“I can’t wait for Mallory to be born, Y/n,” Michael confesses to you one night as you lie in his arms after love. “But part of me wishes that you could stay like this forever.”

Your back aches in response. You roll over and lay a finger on the pink cushion of his lips. “If that were to happen, Michael, I’m pretty sure I’D become the next Antichrist. I don’t know how. I am not a theologian. But it would happen. So, let’s hope it doesn’t.”

“Hmmmmm,” sighs Michael contently, rubbing slow, soothing circles at the ache in your lower back. He tries but, in the end, cannot comprehend how this would be an undesirable turn of events.  

………………………………………………………………………..

 

The night you give birth to Mallory is the most harrowing of Michael’s life.

He, unlike many a mortal, has received irrefutable evidence that You WILL survive the ordeal.

And still…

Here you are, exploding with HIS child, pacing the room in a vain effort to cajole gravity- not magic mind you, but fucking GRAVITY- to do its work. You are hunched over, your beautiful, sweat damp face contorted in agony. Michael, who has ever been your body’s answering voodoo puppet, feels this agony in every pore.

Yet he can do nothing.

NOTHING.

He must stand there and watch his own heart as it writhes painfully outside of his chest.

He must stand there and watch.

Watch.

Watch as the heinous thing he put inside you rends your body to pieces.

Tonight is the night that all of Michael’s past crimes (and the ledger is redder than Myrtle Snow’s hair) are visited upon him.

Dr. Faustinian, the most venerated OB/GYN in Hell, recommended, for some now forgotten and insufferable reason, a natural childbirth, ‘at least, for the first pregnancy.’ No baby has ever been born in Hell. Nor did Antichrist genes mix with those of formerly mortal witches every day. The whole birthing process was, therefore, bracketed with question marks, and coteries of medicine studying Demons in white lab coats were never far from hand to take ‘notes’ during Your appointments.

Michael has been sorely tempted to take each one aside, individually for the sake of calm, and personally unstring their vertebrae. But you said, ‘O no, Michael. Noooo. They are HELPING.’

But who is helping you NOW?

Now, when Michael has been forbidden from performing narcotizing magic or simply transmuting the blasted thing from womb to world.

Now, when Michael’s beautiful girl is moaning in pain and hobbling around the room and stopping to cling to bed posts.

Now, when you shush him whenever he attempts to murmur so much as an encouraging word and bite your nails into his back when you lean on him for support.

Michael remembers all those years ago when he vowed to inflict legions of squalling babes upon you.

Why?

Surely Mallory, with all of her mysterious powers, could conceive, birth and raise herself without you having to go through Hell (figure of speech).

Your body cannot seem to decide which is more unbearable: the pain of lying down or the pain of being upright.

They say that time works ‘differently’ in Hell. You wonder if this is why eight torturous hours of labor feel like nine hundred.

When at last you feel the transition, you lie down and cling to Michael. You allow him to dry your tears with red pocket squares and his own trembling hands. You see your own torment mirrored on his face. Even in the deepest abyss of pain, here he is, your Michael, to comfort you.

Something hard and rotund pushes at your core.

“I’m gonna need you to push now, Your Highness,” says Dr. Faustinian, the Demon that Michael, in his flailing, panicked need to see you through this ordeal alive, has allowed to peer into the heavenly portal from wence the grandchild of Satan is to be ejected.

You push.

And push.

Michael holds your hand and keeps his own tears silent. And NO, he does not PRAY. What are you talking about? Don’t be ridiculous. Michael Langdon, the Antichrist, SOOOOOO does not close his eyes and, right there beside you, silently beseech the mortal enemy of his Father to usher you safely through childbirth. She’s never done a damn thing for him. Why would she (please, please, please, please) start now?

“It’s crowning,” mutters the horrid Doctor.

And before Michael can even breathe in, the tiny, slippery, wailing thing plops out.

The love that Michael feels the instant that he clutches the bloodied, defenceless creature to his chest is a brand new order of overwhelming. He feels that he is liable to die of it.

The weight of his daughter is little more material than a feather, and yet it makes Michael quiver like the weight of the universe.

He gently lowers to sit beside you on the bed. When the infant is passed into your arms, she promptly begins to cry again. She has the audacity to cry, does this precious girl, after what she put you through! Michael wraps his arms around you both, feeling a joy so total and complete that it wears the lucidity of pain. The two souls bundled in his arms comprise infinity, thinks Michael with a shuddering sigh.

And the baby quells.

“I see how it is,” you say, your face streaming with tears of joy. You look down into your child’s perfect little hands, and perfect wrinkled face and laugh like an idiot.

“So nice to see you again, Mallory.”

 

……………………………………….

 

In an ornate, cherry paneled boudoir in Hell’s Red Castle, seven ladies are preparing for the literal party of the century.

Every hundred years, the Demons throw a ball to make all other balls grow a crippling inferiority complex.

“I’m gonna dance till my legs fall off,” announces Vanth, You and Michael’s youngest daughter, as she plants a white orchid into her mass of hair.

“Mom said you have to be in bed by 1 am,” Typhon reminds her with a smile of elder-sister superiority. “If you’re lucky, you won’t miss the fire works.”

“Quit teasing her,” chides Mallory, fitting a Grecian looking crown of coiling copper leaves to her head. “You snuck back in and were throwing up on yourself at the last ball, if I recall.”

Typhon frowns. “That was a hundred years ago, Mal. Dine out on a new story, would you?”

Hecate groans frustratedly before one of the vanity mirrors. She is holding a tiny bottle of liquid eye liner in one hand and a wing tipped applique in the other. “I can’t get this cat eye right!” she says in frustration.

“Just don’t hesitate,” offers Nyx, who, herself never wears and doesn’t give a shit about make up. “Do it in one smooth go.”  

Just then, the door opens and Michael strides into the Boudoir.

The seven girls light up as though a sun beam and ten rainbows have entered the room.

Michael’s glamour this evening puts each and every one of his lovely daughters to shame. Their Father, the Antichrist, is clad in a sheer black, body hugging shirt, with black diamonds circling his neck and a flowing crimson cape whose satin whispers behind him whenever he walks. His cloven hooted high heels add both to his height and to the general haughtiness of his air. Crystalline eyes pop with black liner and smoky eye shadow, fringed with curled, sooty lashes. He has exercised supreme restraint in painting his lips a barely there, nude pink. Michael has been experimenting with his hair lately, unearthing spells to make it change colour and grow at will. Tonight, he sports darker, coifed, jaw length side swept curls tucked back behind one ear. With his glamourous make up and luxuriant sweep of hair, Michael looks more compelling than any of Hell’s famed seductresses.

“Girls, step aside, let your Father show you how it’s done,” Michael says breezily, sweeping himself and his trailing cape into the seat next to Hecate and picking up a pen of liquid kohl.”

With masterful precision, Michel applies a wing tip of calligraphy to his daughter’s eye lid.

“Thanks, Papa,” she says, beaming.

“Is that Demon, Ass-ass-in, Assassal- whatever his name is- going to be at the ball tonight?” Michael asks, trying to sound casual.

Hecate blushes. “It’s ‘Azazel, Papa. And he isn’t a full Demon, his mother’s human… He lives part of the year in Texas.” She’s been texting the amber-eyed Azazel for the better part of a fortnight. He’s sweet and hot, and, unlike her last boyfriend, not intimidated to know that Hecate is the spawn-of the spawn of Satan.

Michael frowns. “Don’t you think you’re a bit young to be carrying on with Half-Demon?”

“Dad, I’m 300!” Hecate laughs. She doesn’t look it of course. Anyone who saw her might be forgiven for thinking her twenty.

“Just as long as you’re careful, and communicative,” says Michael, offering sage advice that he has never personally taken, then, turning his attention to the other eyelid, as his daughters giggle around him.

“If you’re not careful, Hecate,” says Kali, adjusting the blood red cravat she has paired with her pin striped smoke gray suit, you’ll end up living on Earth full time, like me.”

Kali recently finished medical school at the University of Washington and is now engaged to Woman in Seattle who owns and runs a comic book store.

“Will Anne be joining us tonight?” inquires Michael of his future daughter-in law. He dabs a tear drop’s worth of pearlescent highlighter onto one finger and applies it to Hecate’s cheek bone.

“Yes, “says Kali. “She’ll text me when she’s ready and I’ll transmute back.”

“There,” says Michael, surveying his work. “Not that ANY of my beautiful girls need primping or painting…”

“The Demons throw this shin dig only once a century,” says Margarita, draping her shoulders with a shawl of intricate black lace. “We gotta make it look good…”

Michael smirks. His long-held mantle as the vainest member of the family seems to finally be getting some competition. He is about to tell his girls how jealous they are going to make those frumpy succubae that hang around Myrtle Snow, when the door bursts open.

“Hi Mom,” says Kali, as you roll into the room on a cloud of rose pink organza and Chanel perfume.

“Darlings!,” you exclaim, “We’re going to be late!”

Michael is momentarily stunned to immobility by the radiance of his own Wife. The Girls notice. Margarita, Kali, and Mallory roll their eyes. Typhon, Vanth, Nyx and Hecate giggle.

“You look beautiful,” says Michael like a simpleton.

“You look rather gorgeous yourself,” you answer, giving Michael a heart melting smile.

“BARF,” says Mallory.

“Projectile BARF,” says Margarita.

Your hair is swept back over bare- VERY bare- shoulders.  The pale pink colour of your dress is a sugary confection that seems to mock Hell itself. Michael is seized by a strong desire to rip it to smithereens and bend you over for your sartorial insolence.

But he doesn’t.

There are children present.

Instead, you proceed with the evening, making your entrance at the top of grand staircase in the ballroom, as the more esteemed denizens of the Underworld, Myrtle Snow included, look on.

Hell has never known a more mismatched pair than the opposite, yet seemingly composite being that descends into its music filled, candle lit midst. One is black clad, with glamazon make up and a sultry, villainous air. The other exudes light and kindness.   

You are trailed by a sprawling entourage of Daughters and spouses.

Every time you see Michael interacting with his daughters, your heart liquifies anew. There was never a more tender-hearted, maddeningly indulgent, devoted Father. He leads them through the crowd like a peacock swelling with paternal pride. And they light up like fireflies in his company.

The night is a beautiful swell of champagne and Starlight and Shostakovich.

But you have senses only for the ravishing creature with the gall to show up at a black tie gathering in a sheer shirt with his nipples showing.

Seven kids and a couple of centuries in, you still want to eat him up.

It’s not until three hours into the exhausting affair that Michael finally takes you by the hand and leads you into a secluded area past the back garden.

You can hear the far away strains of waltz wafting outside amid an olfactory concert of almond trees, roses, (Hell has become rather fertile over the centuries), bees wax and burnt sugar.

“It’s obscene what you do to me,” grumbles Michael as he pushes you against a leafy pillar of the bloom covered pergola. He slashes at the front of your dress, forming a graveyard of gossamer pink at your feet.

“You have no respect for my wardrobe,” you say with some irritation before he swoops in to cover her neck and bared chest with searing, punishing kisses.

“And you have no respect for my cock…” He grinds out. “I’ll get you another dress,” he adds begrudgingly. If it were up to him you would live under a strict no-clothing regime. Unfortunately, there are a great number of things- far too many- that are not up to Michael.

“O I don’t know about that, Michael,” you whisper impishly, running your fingers through and ruffling the perfection of his side swept chestnut locks.   

When Michael’s hand slides to your crotch, he finds he finds it bare.

“I didn’t wear any underwear,” you say, teeth grazing his ear lobe. “For you.”

“Do you think that was lost on me, Demon Woman?” Michael rasps, rubbing the already sopping triangle. “I’ve had to endure three hours of… ‘pleasantries’ while you’ve been wearing this- this COTTON CANDY.” He tears more of the offending garment away. “Greeting guests... Listening to Myrtle’s oral editorializing about the hors d’oeurves… Smiling as Papa Legba pitched me his plans for the ‘Hell’s First Pleasure Barge Cruise Line’… All the while, knowing that this,” He shoves two long fingers into you and you clench around them with a whimper, “was walking around.”

Michael’s thumb circles the swelling button of your clit as he sucks a mark onto the base of your neck.

It’s true and you know it. You drove him mad all night. Michael is supernaturally sensitive to the ozone of your arousal...

His lips find yours and drink vengently, tongue plundering until all you can taste is him. Pale, smoke tipped eyes bore into you and make your knees buckle.

“P-please, Michael,” you say, knowing how delicious it is to him when you beg.

But instead of fingering you to climax, Michael stops and produces, from some pocket dimension in his, well, pocket, a long, leather tongued riding crop.

O sweet, Jesus.

Not here.

Not now.

“Michael,” you reason, “We are ENTERTAINING.”

You’ve mussed up his hair in a way that makes a curl fall delectably over one side of his face. You swallow. He is so seductive in this gender-norm crushing ensemble, embodying both siren-like feminine magnetism, and potent, earthy masculinity. Michael’s head tilts, he furrows his brows and says, in a voice of cold, maddening composure.

“I do so like to be entertained by You, Y/n. Especially when you scream and pant, and bite down on your own cunt sodden panties to muffle the sounds you make, lest everyone know that you’re my incurable slut.” Michael whips you around, so that your backside is facing him. Gently pushing you forward to rest against the pillar, he brings the tip of the riding crop to your folds and traces the flesh with shivering lightness. You moan. “O, but silly you… You neglected to WEAR any panties this evening…”

You take in a fortifying lungful of air as Michael draws back the riding crop and brings his fingers to your pussy.

TWAK

The ambient strains of the Waltz are rended by the sound of the riding crop coming down on your ass. You look back and prepare to utter a protest. Instead, you gasp as Michael plays with your clit. It feels so fucking good that you jerk forward with the overload of sensation, then inwardly berate yourself for making noise. People are going to HEAR. Fuck. If you tell this to Michael he’ll only make it worse. He might make you go out there with his cum on your face, or yours on his, like he’s always threatening.

“I’ve met a lot of perverts in my day, Y/n,” says Michael. “But no one as depraved as you.”

POT, KETTLE, MIKEY! you think to yourself. But you don’t say anything. You’ll get him back later. O yes… you’ll get him back later…

Michael slides the riding crop up and down your pussy.

Fiend that you are, you rub yourself against it.

“Trying to fuck yourself on the instrument of your discipline… This is a new low, Witch.”

TWAK

Your cunt makes a wet noise as Michael works it expertly with his fingers. All around you, you hear the whispering satin of his cape. You hope that at the very least, it is providing some semblance of cover for these outdoor, nocturnal activities.

Michael is edging you closer to climax. You groan, then bite down on your bottom lip till it bleeds.

“You can’t cum yet,” he warns.

Why does he have the power to unravel you like this? You grind against his fingers. Not caring. Not caring about anything but the feeling.

Behind you, Michael is having an arduous time holding himself in check. He wants to drag this experience out. He wants to make this night a fucking MEMORY. But, feeling your cunt swallowing his fingers, and hearing the luscious sounds you make, reduces him to a cherub curled boy again. His erection strains against the confines of silk pants. If he doesn’t bury himself in your cunt, he’s going to spurt in his pants.

You hear a zipper, then pants falling.

“You’re getting off lightly this time,” he groans.

Your infernal husband shoves his cock into you and there is no rhythm. No control. Just animal grunting and pumping and a ferocity that makes the white-faced demon look like a mild-mannered contestant on the Great British Bake Off.

The wave of your climax rolls over you and you bear down on Michael’s cock. Michael cums. It makes him, poor boy, scream and lose his balance, tipping you over head first past the pillar and into the bushes.

You lie together, a tangled, spent mass, panting and laughing uncontrollably, the blood red cape pooling all around you.

Michael manages to find his cloven feet first. Raising himself up, he reaches for you. When you are upright, Michael sets about lovingly picking twigs from your hair. Then, he unfastens his read cape and drapes it over the nakedness he prefers.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

You nod.

“I love you, Y/n,” he murmurs and kisses your sweat slick forehead.

Holding hands, you forgo the rest of the party and make your way down the path beneath the perfumed, blossoming pergola, to a hidden entrance of the red castle.

You will spend no part of the next few hours outside of the tenderest, most intimate circle of Michael’s awareness. He will bathe you. Then you will climb into your tacky red bed and he will hold you against him until the light of morning. The Devil’s Son so does enjoy caring for you after your ‘ordeal’ in the garden.

Your only regret will come later, when you hear that you missed Nan’s joyful announcement at the Ball.

“PAPA LEGBA’S GONNA BE A REAL PAPA, YOU GUYS!” the dark-haired Witch-Emissary says, addressing the gathered crowd and raising a glass of sparkling water.

“Where are Mom and Papa?” whispers Nyx, looking around. “Have you seen them, Aunt Myrtle?”

Myrtle takes a long drink of her White Russian. “Best let’s not think about it, Dear,” she says. “Phobos did such a nice job getting this ballroom party-ready; I’d hate to spontaneously redecorate.”

 

……………………………………………..

As the blue murk of twilight descends upon the five hundredth anniversary of the day Michael temporarily destroyed the world, you hold your husband’s hand and wait with him beside a small pool in the garden. The evening has a startling quietness about it, as if the great oak tree and grass and sky all wish to be privy to the hopes and activities of two lovers.

That you stood, so long ago, in this precise tableau and watched the first Mallory you ever knew disappear into the roiling, blackening waters of the Tempus pool, is not lost on either of you.

In the time and space between, you and Michael have only grown to love one another more.

Michael cannot, even now, after centuries by your side, keep his eyes off of the woman who gave him his life, who opened him to the wonders of the world, who made him whole through the painful bliss of her love.   

When bubbles begin to appear in the pool, you laugh through tears, and, unable to wait a second longer (even though she was only gone a minute, by your time), throw yourselves into the water to welcome Mallory home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You cannot imagine what a beautiful adventure it has been to write this story and share it with you. Your responses and thoughts have made me jump and cry with joy. The past few months have been made inexpressibly happier because of you.  
> THANK YOU.  
> Thank you forever, from the bottom of my heart.  
> It makes me so sad to have it end!
> 
> The mythologically inclined among you have likely noticed that Michael and Y/n's daughters (except Mallory ha, and Margarita who get's her name from Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita' where there is a devil and a ball and everything) have the names of various female entities associated with the underworld.  
> Also, the Cody Fern inclined among you (OMG BUT AREN'T WE ALL!?) may have noticed that Michael's outfit for the Demons' Century ball was inspired by what he blessed us with at the Golden Globes.
> 
> OK, so question for y'all: I am wanting to do a Michael Langdon Historical Romance/ Regency AU (like an Loretta Chase kind of thing but shittily written instead of good). But I am torn!! Should I make it a reader insert? Or do a Millory romance? What do you think is better? I don't know what I am going to do!  
> My heart is telling me: reader insert  
> Would that suck?

**Author's Note:**

> The Painting 'The Return of the Prodigal Son' by Rembrandt Van Rijn is actually located in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, and not the Boston Museum of Fine Arts as I have it in the story. I figure, if I am playing fast and loose with canon and timelines and the like, why not go for it, cus it just seems like a thing Michael might fixate over. So much of AHS seems to hinge around Massachusetts so I hope it works.


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